Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego is separated from the South American continent by the Strait of Magellan. At its narrowest point, the strait is less than 5 kilometers wide, which is where we took the car ferry. The crossing takes only 20 minutes and the ferry is supposed to go every half hour. However, when we got there one of the two ships was out of service, which created a long backlog of waiting cars. After waiting in line for four hours and after the sun had already set, we finally made it to the other side. We managed to find a guesthouse in the Chilean town of Cerro Sombrero to spend the night.

The Chilean-Argentine border roughly cuts Tierra del Fuego in half, though Chile controls the entire Strait of Magellan, which leaves the Argentine part disconnected from the rest of Argentina. Therefore, we had to cross two borders in two days on the way to Ushuaia. We spent one night in the Argentine city Rio Grande, which was not necessary in retrospect. The roads in Tierra del Fuego were much better than we expected and we could have driven down to Ushuaia in a single day.

When Ferdinand Magellan first sailed here, he saw many fires across the land, which is why he named it Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire). The native Yaghan people lived in this cold climate with little to no clothing. Instead, they kept warm by making fires. On the day we drove to Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city, we did not feel the fire. It was very cold and windy. As we drove over the mountain passes before the town, we were hit with heavy gusts of snow and rain. We spent the afternoon in our hotel, drinking tea, looking out the window and wondering what winter here might look like.

Fortunately, the next day was much warmer and brighter. We spent the day in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, which is located West of Ushuaia along the Beagle Channel. We did a few hikes around the park to experience the beautiful scenery.

View over the Beagle Channel from a hike in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

Mussels visible at low tide at the shore in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

Marta hiking through the forest in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

Lago Roca in front of Cerro Cóndor

View over the Beagle Channel from the end of Ruta Nacional 3

Laguna Negra in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

Mountain view from the road to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego

On the last day in Ushuaia, we hiked East of the city along the Beagle Channel to Estancia Túnel. While the national park is quite full of tourists, we were almost alone on this hike and could enjoy the sweeping views in the silence of nature.

View back to Ushuaia from our hike to Estancia Túnel

Estancia Túnel at the Beagle Channel

After three days in Ushuaia, it was time to turn around and start moving North again. In a bit more than three weeks, we will have to return our car in Santiago. Since we knew that the roads were good, we covered more distance this time and drove all the way back to the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego.

Common Argentine highway sign reminding people that Las Malvinas (the Falkland Islands) are part of Argentina

“International bird” we found on the road between the Argentine and the Chilean border control offices

Back in Chile, we spent the night at a beautiful estancia in the middle of nowhere. It was a great spot for a couple on their honeymoon. Our room had an open fireplace that kept us warm throughout the night and the sunset over the endless plains surrounding us was spectacular.

Our room with a fire place at the estancia in Tierra del Fuego

Evening sky around our estancia in Tierra del Fuego

Sunset over our estancia in Tierra del Fuego

Sky at dusk around our estancia in Tierra del Fuego

Another great thing about this estancia was its proximity to a king penguin colony. This is the second largest species of penguins in the world. With a height of almost one meter, they are much taller than the Magellanic penguins we saw back in Chiloé. Besides the height, they also differ in the yellow-orange color on their heads and chests.

King penguin colony at Bahía Inútil

King penguins

From the penguin colony, 110 kilometers of gravel roads brought us to Porvenir, a small town at the Western edge of Tierra del Fuego. From there, we left Tierra del Fuego by taking the car ferry back to the South American mainland. The sea was rough on the nearly 40 kilometer crossing to Punta Arenas and we were happy when the ride was over.

Car ferry on the Strait of Magellan between Porvenir and Punta Arenas