Tierra del Fuego
Arriving south
We landed in Rio Gallegos last night. A small, quaint coastal town in the south of Argentina mainland. After three and a half hours on a chatty Aerolíneas Argentinas flight from Buenos Aires where everyone seemed to know each other, we touched down in a baron flat landscape devoid of anything nearby of any height. No buildings over a few stories or even trees. Our Airbnb host picked us up at the airport, holding a sign. This makes any arrival at an airport feel somewhat special. To see someone already there waiting for your arrival and has gone through the effort to scribble your name on a piece of paper. What luxury!
We fumbled through some light conversation in English with our host. “Today, the weather is good. Yesterday, winds were over 80km.” I wondered if this was a possible explanation for the empty landscape.
We drive about ten minutes through a forgotten town with a somewhat ghost-like presence to match the landscape. Intermixtures of crumbling and rugged houses line the neighborhood until we arrive at Marianne’s home. A two bed, two story cabin like structure with a slanted roof stretching all the way to the ground. We are here only one night as a stopover. Tomorrow our bus leaves at 9 AM for Punta Arenas, Chile.
We walk into town to the nearest brewery, Patagonia brewing, for some parrilla (BBQ) and beer. Going over some last-minute planning on the week to come. To tour Tierra del Fuego by road trip really is a trip of a lifetime. Giddiness and excitement are bubbling up inside me, as a years-long dream is on the brink of fruition. It reminds me of how I felt the night before my flight to LAX when I was seven on our family trip to Disneyland. I don’t get this feeling often, and I contemplate how to savor it while also managing to get some sleep tonight. But the slight buzz from the beer assists in the latter as I drift off to the mental image of a remote penguin colony waddling along a freezing beach on the Strait of Magellan
Continuing South
The bus to Punta Arenas alleges to take four hours. This all depends on customs and the border crossing of course. We arrive an hour early, at 8 AM, to buy the tickets since their website wasn’t working the night before. A common characteristic of Latin America. Dark grey clouds set the tone on this muggy morning and a light drizzle starts as our cab rolls up to the terminal. A gloomy reminder that the weather where we’re headed is known for its unpredictable and temperamental tendencies.
Marga Taqsa is the only bus company operating this route at $6,000 ARS ($16.20 USD). We’ve relied heavily on rome2rio for discovering different methods of travel.
Quick sidebar, I should explain the exchange rate for any of you at home double checking my math. There is a peculiar exchange rate phenomenon occurring in Argentina at the moment. If you are sitting at home looking at a map of the world wondering where to take your next trip, and Argentina is in consideration, you should pay attention. Google claims that the exchange rate is $195 ARS to $1 USD. But if you exchange cash, it is actually $370 ARS to $1 USD (if you don’t have cash, Western Union has a solution). This has made our trip so far in Argentina unbelievable affordable (not exaggerating). I keep joking with KC that our biggest mistake of this backpacking trip was not getting here sooner. It’s not really a joke, though..
Here we are, on a double-decker bus. Seats reclined all the way back. I’m in shock at the luxury of this bus. The seats actually do recline to almost horizontal. The amount of leg room is plenty so that if the person in front of you is reclined, it’s not uncomfortable. And there is an attendant serving us coffee and cake. And the movie of choice, Blood Diamond in Spanish with Spanish subtitles, is playing on a dropdown screen from the ceiling directly in front of me. This bus ride could be 12 hours and I think I’d still be comfortable. Other bus companies, please take note.
Though, all of this is just the calm before the storm.
Day 1 — Leaving Punta Arenas
On our way to Wicked Campervans to pick up the van, I’m still giddy. We’re in a taxi the hostel called for us, and I’m so distracted with excitement that my attempt to give him directions just spills out as a jumbled confusing Spanglish mess. He frustratingly stabs my phone screen with his finger indicating that maybe the Gringo should just show him where we’re going on Google Maps. Message received..
20 minutes later we arrive on the outskirts of town, via a dirt road, to Wicked. We get some obligatory paperwork out of the way and Christopher hands me the keys. Nostalgia charged with excitement fill both KC and I, ready to start our second van-life adventure. Although this will only be 8 days, and not 6 months, it feels like a return to the lifestyle I’ve been upsettingly deprived of for too long. KC implies I over romanticize the time in the van when I say, fairly confidently, that I was at my happiest when in Daisy (our old class C RV from our US road trip 2020–21)
She kept a journal for each day we were in the RV, and for a good portion of Southeast Asia. Every now and then, laying in bed reading before we turn out the lights, she’ll look over at me whimsically, journal in hand, implying that I “pick a day.” The subtext of this conversation is a dance we both know well. I respond with a day I know to fall under one of the three legs of the RV trip, and she reads a passage in excruciating detail that she captured within only a few days of the events occurring. Her and I both daydream as the words whisk us away into a mixture of memories that inevitably leave us both smiling and reminiscing. Sometimes she had even written direct quotes from these days. “I feel like the richest man in the world,” was one that always sticks out in my memory. When I said this, I think I was sitting criss-cross in Daisy in my sweatpants, three days without a shower, playing cribbage with her in a Walmart parking lot, curtains drawn and stringlights lit, sipping Evan Williams and Coke on the rocks out of our short-rainbow-plastic cups, probably coming from or going to a National Park.
Vivid memories of low maintenance and complete autonomy help comprise some of my favorite times traveling. Loading this van up with our packs and pulling out of the lot fills us both with this feeling once more. The next eight days, we have to scrutinize Google Maps and iOverlander for campgrounds and places to explore. Although this van doesn’t have a toilet or a shower, but it’s only a week, we’ll manage gas station toilets and showers for the time being.
Route
We start in Punta Arenas, in Chile. We plan to drive north to catch the only (daily) ferry to Tierra del Fuego, about 170km north. Then after crossing the Strait of Magellan, we plan to make our way toward Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world (so Argentina claims) in potentially the least efficient path possible.
We plan to treat Ushuaia as home base for a few days as we explore the most southern area. Ushuaia is also well known for many travelers on their way to Antarctica. This is typically the last stop before boarding a boat to the remote and rarely explored last continent. I promised KC that the last time we find ourselves this far south we will be shelling out the $5k it takes to make the trek.
But for now, it’s the discount road to the end of the world. After we explore the Ushuaia area, we plan to drive back to Punta Arenas in a direct shot.
Back to day 1
After a quick grocery stop, we are stocked with enough food and water to survive the potential remote-road-side breakdown. Wickedcampervans offered us to pick from any number of the free, left-behind goodies from other travelers. Eager to save money (honestly saved probably $15 max), we rifle through the shelf to make away with free toilet paper, some staples with a long shelf life like pasta, rice, seasoning, Nutella, clothes pins, and most importantly, a wool blanket. The weather forecast says we may have some nights in Ushuaia near freezing.
Grocery list completed, we race north to catch the ferry, feeling like the adventure doesn’t truly begin until we cross the water. We pull up to the ferry launch around 3PM to a shockingly long line of cars. The remote highway seems to just end in bumper-to-bumper traffic a quarter mile from the boat launch. KC and I both stare forward filled with as much annoyance as confusion. I get out, walk to the side of the street to look down the way and can’t even see where it begins. With nothing to do but wait, we take a moment to organize all of our belongings. Clothes and toiletries in one cupboard. All bedding in another. Our packs stuffed away in the hardest-to-get-to compartment since we won’t be needing them. All the food organized and stored into compartments in the IKEA-like furniture built into the back of the van.
We convert the bed to the table in anticipation of a card game in the event we’re here for a while. After we’re all settled, I ask the guy who has pulled up behind us if he knows what’s going on. He tells me in the thickest accent I’ve ever heard (he might’ve been Italian) that we have to wait for high tide. Although I had to ask him to repeat it several times — “como”, “lentamente, porfa”. We take a stroll to the front of the cars to confirm.. we’re stuck here until 7:30PM. The ferry is grounded in plain sight on the launch. When was the last time you saw a boat captain ground a ferry at a boat launch because the schedule coincided with low tide? 20 minutes later we’ve forgotten our frustrations out and are contented drinking a cold Coors (yes, the banquet beer) and splitting a burger from the Ferry restaurant while playing cribbage in our new home on wheels. It’s starting to feel a lot like life on the road again. Blessing in disguise that the ferry was delayed.
We board the ferry after the sun goes down at around 8:30PM. We cross in rough waters with a starlit night sky combatting a full moon. KC and I stood on top of the ferry, wind howling and piercingly cold, wondering how choppy it was the first time Ferdinand Magellan and his crew crosses these water over 500 years prior. Filled with an overwhelming sense of fulfilling a lifelong dream in the making, KC and I stare onward at the reflection of the moon off the sea. My heart is filled with gratification and accomplishment and I’m partially distracted, wondering how long we’d survive in these chilling waters if these waves broadside this ferry. My guess is, you wouldn’t make it very long. It was fabled that Magellan and his crew sailed this strait and at night, looking left and right, saw bonfires roaring from local hunter-gatherer tribes. This is what the name Tierra del Fuego (translated to “land of fire”) comes from. Ironically, there was a burn-ban our whole time in this region, so no fuego for us. Now I see, to both the North and South, dim lights that in no way resemble what the view looked like 500 years ago. So I lean on my imagination and do my best to soak up every moment, eager for what this week has in store.
As our wheels finally touch down on the island, we feel like the adventure has truly begun. We search iOverlander for any place with decent reviews off the main road to sleep for the night. An empty grass field sounds perfect. Driving along in the pitch black, KC urgently says “Jeremy look up in the sky right now!” I glance up through the windshield to see a parade of Starlink satellites gliding across the sky in a straight line. We pull over and watch them slide across and disappear into the dark. A welcoming from space to this island and a surreal start to our adventure. We drive on down a small path off the main road, and up a bumping off-off-road path to a vaguely flat patch of grass and dirt. As the wind started howling, we make the bed and call it a night on day one.
Day 2 — Penguins and Lago Blanco
We hit the road early, our first day in Tierra del Fuego, thanks to the delayed ferry. Our plan for today was to make it to Lago Blanco, hitting some notable stops along the way. Each day is loosely mapped out, but we like to go with the flow, so usually it changes. Our plan was to reach Puerto Arturo down the west coast of the island, then back track up and further South toward the village of Cameron and on to Lago Blanco.
So at around 9 AM, sleeping in since we got to our campsite so late, we rolled out of the abandoned field. iOverlander is already proving to be an important tool for our journey to come.
We quickly hop back on the main road and drive South toward the town of Cerro Sombrero. iOverlander had a “meat store” (butcher I’m hoping) that promised some wild guanaco meat. Guananco is an herbovoire cousin of the alpaca found all over this region, in high supply. We were told that, when the natural land bridge connecting Tierra del Fuego to the mainland was severed, a decent portion of the Guanaco population found themselves on the southern side without any natural predator (pumas).
I clumsily point to the menu and inquire about “carne de guanaco.” The sweet hunched over Fuegian woman toothily grins back at me and dives into a detailed explanation of the cuts they offer, to which I hesitantly respond with vivid clarity at my lack of understanding, “sí, quiero carne de guanaco, por favor.” Patiently nodding, bless her heart, she ducks away to the wall behind her and a moment later out comes an English speaker.
She sells me one kilo of ground Guanaco and 300 grams of Guanaco sirloin. Virtually zero fat on the sirloin, and I’m assuming the ground as well, so she makes it clear that I need to cook it with plenty of fat. Altogether, around 1.4 kg of guanaco meat for around $8 USD.. not bad!
I linger for a minute after my purchase and bounce some itinerary ideas off of the lady at the desk, unsure of when I’ll get another opportunity to ask another English speaker. She hands me a cartoon map depicting the Chilean side of the island and highlighting points of interest. She also makes it very clear that the small bridge leading out to Puerto Arturo has collapsed. She leans over to peak out the window at our van and shakes her head. “You can only reach Puerto Arturo during low tide with a 4x4. If you time the tides wrong, you could either not make it, or worse, be stuck out there.” So, Puerto Arturo is out.
KC and I stop in a café in Cerro Sombrero to shower, breakfast and talk over our change in daily strategy. There are public bathrooms and showers that you can easily find on iOverlander. We take advantage as it’s been a couple days and take a hot shower, each of taking turns as we only allowed for one pair of shower shoes in the road trip budget (but more so to conserve space in our packs). For a public shower, the water pressure and temperature were solid and it’s hard to put into words how gratifying this can be after being cold and unwashed on the road, if even only after 48 hours. Small, yet enormous, gratifying pleasures of the seemingly everyday luxuries such as these are what I miss and over-romanticize about life on the road. Our time with Daisy had no shortage of these. Our brains do a good job of highlighting only the positive in such memories. But now, despite a frigid night and same clothing for a third day, all I can recognize is pure gratitude and bliss to be out here.
Washed and clean, we head to the café on the edge of town and over pay for a ham and cheese sandwich breakfast ($15 USD) and stop in at the local convenient store, which is shockingly well stocked. We make off with a box of wine and a bag of ice. Now our guanaco doesn’t have to spoil.
We hit the road, much later than expected, at mid day, destined for the king penguin refuge only 90 minutes South. At $12,000 CLP ($15 USD) we got a small tour, explanation and access to the viewing platform of these perfect specimens. The king penguin is the iconic penguin usually depicted, with the yellowish/orange patch near the eyes. We stared at a colony of 40–50 penguins (exceeding 100 at times) as they sat on their eggs and waddled back and forth, wings splayed out for balance. The male and females take turns sitting on the eggs week-to-week, while the other feeds in the nearby water. Some of this was evident as they climbed in and out of the water on a dirt patch onramp. Taller elders stretch their necks to the sky and squawk in an almost goose-like honk, the communal “here-we-are” occasional announcement I can only assume.
The babies, recently hatched and recognizable by their brownish/beige fluffy coat, stand nearby and chirp at their parents who occasionally will lean over and regurgitate food into their mouth. Cheerily gratified only for a moment, they repeat, hungry for more. The other penguins seem agnostic to the baby, ignoring it and just kind of standing there, looking around without much to do. And so they remain, during their nesting season, until their babies hatch and it’s time to migrate somewhere else for the winter months. Information which I failed to get from our guide at the time.
90 minutes after arriving, we are back on the open road, absorbing the breathtaking scenery of rolling hills perched alongside the unrelentingly harsh and beautiful seas of the Strait of Magellan. Guanaco’s are so abundant, I wonder if hunting is the only check system in place for this thriving species that is without a natural predator. They stand lazily roadside grazing until our van noisily rips down the dirt road disturbing their silence (calm, quaint wind torn silence). These gentle, majestic creatures spook easy and were generally uninterested in making contact with us. We were able to snap some videos as we rolled up to them, usually of them sprinting away in a nervous terror.
And so the rest of the day went, dirt road after dirt road, as we pressed on to Lago Blanco, which came highly recommended from the butcher. Still somehow undersold, this remote vast picture-book-like landscape was as breathtaking as it was untamed. Clearly marked campsites were nothing more than a somewhat flat patch where you could park a van. We butted up to the lake, the only people around as far as we could see, and watched the sunset over the dramatic Chilean mountainous landscape.
Tierra del Fuego was mostly flat and rolling hills. Only here in Lago Blanco, as well as further South, does the landscape start to increase in elevation, and in dramatic fashion. Typically consistent with the reputation that is Patagonia, KC and I marveled in the spectacle of not only the natural beauty, but at how vehemently perplexed we were that no one else was around to take it in. We were standing next to quite possibly the most beautiful lake we have ever laid eyes on set upon a dramatic mountain range with a volcanic black sand beach. Only caveat, there was a gale of wind that made standing outside for a long period of time fairly uncomfortable.
KC and I cooked our guanaco sirloin steaks with a side of rice and boxed wine as the sun set and played cribbage. A perfect ending to a monumental day, epitomizing the very best of what this lifestyle has to offer. We laid in the van afterward as dusk set in, indulging in a cup or two more of whiskey when the boxed wine ran out. Drunk on the highs of the day, feeling rich in each other’s company and experience, there was no doubt in how very lucky we were to be right there in that very moment.
Day 3 — Caleta Maria
We woke with the sun, sleep schedules now on track. First order of business, start the van and blast the heat defrost. The windows are covered in condensation and take a solid 15 minutes of defrost to clear up enough to start driving. While the heat pumps, I step out and around to the back to start putting all the kitchenware away. KC packs the bed away, consolidating our belongings to their respective compartments. Each day starts with these tasks, a habitual “making of the bed” for the van lifestyle.
We rolled out at 8 AM planning to drive as far South as we can in Chile. Caleta Maria was another highly recommended area, so that is our target before turning around and heading back North. We move along in the stillness of the morning to surprisingly no wind, complete opposite to the night prior. Climbing further South, the number of potholes increase linearly with the number of guanaco. They dominate the landscape around nearly every turn, blankly staring at us with skepticism until we encroach on their 20 meter or so barrier that causes them to jolt away from the road, leaping over farm fences where necessary.
The drive weaved in and out of hilly country increasingly turning into mountainous terrain. By noon, we were climbing a small mountain pass with a breathtaking landscape before descending into Lago Despreciado, which is shared by both Argentina and Chile. Along this stretch of road, we are within 5–10 km of the Argentina border for nearly 2 hours, racing along as fast as possible while trying to safely dodge potholes. KC is visibly stressed while I’ve got the steering wheel gripped white-knuckled and enjoying the thrill of zipping up and down the winding roads.
Moving comparatively slower than the more defined roads of yesterday, it takes us around two hours to cover the 90 or so kilometers. Plenty of stops to stare at guanacos, vistas, and the ham sandwich/brie cheese lunch break helped add to this as well. Persisting through to Caleta Maria takes you (pretty much) to the end of the road, which is well worth it. The road ends into gorgeous lake surrounded by fjords and glaciers (not visible from the road) with only a couple small cabins inhabited by local farmers, one of which runs boat rides to the glacier for a whopping $150 USD pp. KC and I heavily considered this, but thought better of it as the price was steep (welcome to Chile) and we would burn a day and a half off our road trip.
We took in the sights, chatted with some locals (“podemos user tú baño, por favor?”) and took a dip in the icy cold water (I did, not KC). The sun was out and warm, relatively, and it was as nice a place as any to sit and relax. An overwhelming and often recurring sensation along this trip, of a lifelong dream manifesting swept over us both, finally arriving at the trip I’ve obsessed over since the pre-pandemic days. Tierra del Fuego was showing off in full form and somehow exceeding my already to begin with enormous expectations of adventure. I like it here, can you tell?
I dry off after my (brief) dip in the lake, which I thought was saltwater going into it. Then we pack up and set out, back up the road we came, north to San Sebastian where we will be crossing the border into Argentina (the southern crossing closest to us is closed due to a collapsed bridge). This border crossing was a welcome change as things in Argentina, comparatively speaking, tend to be more affordable. We drove without stop until the gas light came on. Then we pressed on further. We arrived at the border, exiting Chile first, entering Argentina next, with the gas light on and warning us to refuel. However, we filled a five-gallon emergency fund of fuel in the event we ever truly needed it. I was determined to go until the car physically shut down and forced us to dip into our reserves. Somehow, we made it through both borders and rolled into the gas station just on the other side of the border with what I can only assume were a handful of miles more to spare. Thankful too, that we did not have to pay the cost of Chilean gas. Filled the tank for $6200 ARS ($16.19 USD)… like I said, Argentina is affordable.
We filled up and stopped nearby to cook up some spaghetti and guanaco Bolognese sauce (again, the meat a bit tough). We cooked a full pound of meat into one pack of sauce, so the marinara sauce was hardly noticeable. Nonetheless, we wolfed it down like we hadn’t eaten all day, and it was as satisfying of a meal as ever. Cooking out of the back of the van, small standup table with foldout chairs, we munched happily in the evening sun and waived to passerby locals and bicyclists.
This was San Sebastian, and we wanted to move a bit farther South while we still had daylight. So we finished our meals, rinsed off the plates, and continued on to Rio Grande just in time to park by the beach, pop open a bottle of wine, and enjoy some pre-downloaded Netflix, bundled up in our puff coats and wool blankets in the dimming light with the sound of crashing waves and foot traffic in the background.
Day 4 — Ushuaia
Waking with the sun and groaning with creaking bones in the cold morning air, we sheepishly follow the morning routine and are on the road before 8 AM. Eager for some actual, not-instant-coffee, we detour into town and find a café. Usually, whatever town we go to, we rely heavily on Google Maps (and ratings/filters) to decide where the best option is. We hang out for an hour and warm up a bit with both hands wrapped around the mug, enjoying the stillness of the café and the new book I picked up back in Lima a week prior — Creatures of a Day by Irvin Yalom.
Our drive today is only a couple of hours, two and a half tops. And so we take the only highway out of town, headed South to Ushuaia (pronounced oo-soo-eye-uh), the southern-most city in the world. Thanks to iOverlander, we learned that the YPF gas stations along the way were also trucker stops that occasionally offered showers. We found one an hour down the road and stopped, once again, to scrub ourselves clean. The free stations tended to reflect poorer quality, but this one charged us $400 ARS each ($1.05 USD) and was reasonably clean and maintained. I didn’t mind spending a tad extra to avoid the sometimes nauseating conditions these can be left in.
Since we only have one pair of shower shoes, KC showered first while I went inside the market to charge some electronics. An enthusiastic Fuegian behind the counter was excited to hear I was from Seattle, and started asking me about our trip, which I happily divulged every detail I could manage in Spanish. He then insisted I try a cup of Yerba Mate, after I told him I wanted something warm to drink but not coffee. I had tried it in Buenos Aires a week prior and found it disturbingly potent and flavorful. Maybe I need to give it another try, I thought.
Yerba Mate, or just Mate, is a type of tea. I had seen it chilled in a bottle plenty before. In Argentina, it’s a little more culturally significant. You jam as many mate leaves into a tiny cup (6–7 fluid ounces I would guess) as you can. A special straw with a filtration device on the bottom, called a bombilla, must be completely placed inside the cup prior to packing the leaves, and stays there. You then pour scalding hot water in, which is only a few sip fulls at best, given how tightly packed the leaves are. Wait until the water is a bearable temperature (I burned my tongue several times) and sip what little water you have, repeatedly pouring more water after every couple of sips. Argentinians are obsessed with this stuff. You’ll even see some on hikes with a large thermos and their mate cup. Every truck driver has one situated beside them on their long routes and the attendant laughed while trying to mime how they maneuver constantly pouring water from the thermos while driving. I nervously laughed while imagining local news headlines of a five car pileup caused because some truck driver was distracted by refilling his mate.
This stop split our day in half. The wind was subsiding for now, the sun was out and we had blue skies as we rolled on to the base of the encroaching mountain range, signifying our close proximity. The road winds carelessly over hills and around beautiful lakes pristine with glacier run off. Reaching the Garibaldi pass, I drop my speed to half of the limit so KC can lean out the window and, with the GoPro in one hand and her iPhone in the other, record the dramatic vista and incredible road trip views in front of us. I preferred this to stopping as, being the driver for the entire route, getting there sooner rather than later always appealed to me.
We coasted down the southern side of the pass, past a closed ski resort and remote cabin-like hotels in the continuously rugged landscape. By this point, KC and I stopped seeing Guanacos. A side-effect to the relatively populous Argentinian side of Tierra del Fuego. My mind wandered, as I swerved left and right with the winding highway, to the Guanaco 24-hours prior, munching bottom jaw left-to-right endlessly on grass. Their blank stares at us, whistling and clicking in hopes we would spark curiosity enough to approach the car (which never happened). With bottomless pastures to graze and an absence of any natural predator, what does a Guanaco concern themselves with? I wonder if they also keep their distance from the foxes we’ve been seeing down here…
90 minutes after our gas station shower, we roll in Ushuaia. Hard to miss and decorated with a clear entrance sign, Ushuaia begins heavily industrial, which takes five minutes to drive through. Downtown is picturesque, postcard-like even, resembling a city that knows the value of its own aesthetic. Our plan is to use today to explore town, maybe visit a few bars, and sleep in the van nearby. A major advantage of vanlife in Tierra del Fuego, is that even in cities, you can camp anywhere (or so we were told by Wicked Campervans). We take full advantage and park in the tourist parking lot situated between the visitor center, downtown and the harbor. Parking is free, too. The only downside, we will need to walk to a nearby café to use the toilet.
Attempting to make the most of our three days here, today also comprises of errand-running and scheduling. The agenda, in no particular order, will include:
- Tierra del Fuego National Park (whole day)
- Boat ride in Beagle Channel (half day)
- Sightseeing and exploring town
- Laguna Esmerelda hike
Day 5: Tierra del Fuego National Park
Up at 8 AM, packing the van up and preparing for the day. We stop by a nearby café for a café con leche, The Banana Café, a no-frills restaurant with cheap coffee. Afterward, we head into the park, a 30 minute drive west toward the Chilean border. At the park entrance, I realize we don’t have enough cash and their credit card reader doesn’t seem to be accepting my card. The snobby attendant is sucking at a Yerba Mate straw and rolling her eyes through my inquiry as to whether she will accept USD or not.
We drive a few minutes back to the train entrance. Apparently, a common way to see the park is by a kitschy, touristy looking train that shuttles you in, through, and out. This was never a consideration for us since your view of the park through this method looks very limited. I walk up to the teller and ask if there’s an ATM, “hay un cajero automática acá?” She shakes her head. But then, as I ask if I can change USD, she suggests I buy a coffee with USD and receive pesos as change. A little currency exchange hack I was unaware of prior.
We return to the park and zip through, feeling a bit behind schedule for our hike of Cerra Guanaco. For this hike specifically, you’ll need to register at the visitors center prior to starting and it’s recommended to register before noon. This is the highest peak and longest hike in the park. We figured it would be the best way to spend our one day in the park. And with an entry fee of $5,500 ARS ($14.36 USD) per person, one day would be enough. The hike is an out-and-back trail, 13.5 km total and climbing roughly 3,402 feet of elevation gain. The landscape circumnavigates a glacial lake before climbing into wooded area for a couple kilometers. It then spits us out into a muddy pasture before continuing very steeply up loose gravel to the spiney peak with breathtaking 360 views of Beagle Channel, nearby mountains, and neighboring Chile. The wind nearly pushes you over and is unrelenting. We take in the other-worldly sites and duck under a nearby rock for shelter from the gale.
After the hike, we arrive at the van with a clicker that doesn’t seem to be working. KC and I confusingly click to unlock the car again and again, but it isn’t working. I manually unlock the driver side door with the key and begin to realize why. I notice the headlights switch cranked forward and confirm my suspicion. One thing to note about driving in Tierra del Fuego, you must have your headlights on at all times. Not really sure why, but that’s a rule of the road. Since I haven’t concerned myself with a manual one-off headlight switch since high school, I suspected I would kill the battery at some point along this trip. And now we’ve arrived at that inevitability. I embarrassedly flag down a Canadian couple in their car to help give us a jump. Without hesitation, KC pulls her phone out to capture my shameful oversight. She seems to be finding plenty of humor in the whole situation. I’m visibly annoyed.
With the engine finally running, and a need to keep it running in order to charge the battery, we drive the length of the remaining roads. Wild horses line the roads and trot carelessly along, looking well fed and happier than animals we’re used to seeing back home in the United States. One road takes us south toward the channel, ending at a dock and the southernmost post office (according to the Argentinian government) in the world. I mail my niece a postcard and KC sends a few of her own. We contemplate camping in the park for the night. The entire park allows for camping, and there are decent restrooms at each campsite. We contemplate our options while we cook the rest of the ground guanaco. Same dinner as two nights prior in San Sebastian, spaghetti and Bolognese sauce.
Tomorrow morning, we have a reservation for our boat trip at 9 AM, so we opt to drive back into town tonight and give ourselves the extra time to sleep in by avoiding the drive in the morning. So we find ourselves in the same parking lot as the night before.
Day 6: Sailing in Beagle Channel
It’s 10 AM and we are boarding our sailboat with Tres Marias tour agency. Boat tours in the channel are very popular in Ushuaia, and for good reason. We chose this excursion instead of going to Isla Martillo to walk with Magellenic penguins because we were told that in March, many penguins have left to migrate North. This turned out not to be the case, as we later saw from other tourists videos. KC and I were disappointed to miss the penguins, but having found the king penguin colony a few days prior, we rationalized it as the right decision at the time.
The sailboat tour was $14,000 ARS ($36.55 USD) each. We sailed through the channel to a small rock covered with sea lions and cormorants. Then on to Island H, the southernmost island in Argentina. We walked around the island as our guide pointed out native plant life. We learned about how the island was a natural refuge for indigenous prior to white Europeans arriving. And we even tried wild calafate berries, a bush only found in Patagonia and which is used heavily in flavoring all cuisine of the region, including often times beer.
We sailed back to port as the crew provided coffee, spiked with caramel liquor and alfajor, a delectable Argentinian dessert of dulce de leche smushed between two powdery-dry biscuits, typically paired with coffee. As we savored our local snack and warmed our hands around our drinks, we chatted with other tourists, primarily Europeans, on other travel itineraries and must-see ticket items of the region. We met a brother and sister traveling from the Netherlands, and made plans to meet later in the evening for beers and dinner.
The afternoon comprised of more errand running that embodies the less glamorous side of backpack travel. We dropped off some dirty laundry and the lady indicated we could pick it up that evening around 8:30 PM, just before they closed. Then we went to Western Union to withdraw some more money, at the deviously lucrative exchange rate, double what Google suggests ($383 ARS to $1 USD at the time of writing this). Then we head back to our typical parking lot and walk to a nearby market so KC can pick up her ring for Argentina.
KC left her engagement ring in Seattle, for obvious reasons. And so, with each country we go to, she picks out a new engagement ring to signify both the country, and well, that she is still engaged. This countries choice is a swirly, wirey display with a pink stone at the center (rhodochrosite, Argentina’s national gemstone). Afterward we walk town once more, sipping hot chocolate and later beer. The Belgians meet us out and we all go for a traditional Fuegian BBQ, a whole, heavily salted, splayed lamb angled over an open wood fire pit. We split a bottle of Malbec and share stories of travel and home, in a fashion typical of newly found backpacking acquaintances. I find these moments to be among my favorite along our journey, once you can navigate passed the mundane everyday questions: “Where are you from?” “How long is your trip?” blah blah blah. Good company, plentiful BBQ, and delicious wine, helped cap off an incredible experience in Ushuaia.
The dinner runs a bit late, so KC and I opt to pick up our laundry in the morning before we head out of town. We convert the van for bed and drift off to sleep with a wine blanket that just barely fends off the lower temperature in the van to 38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Day 7: Leaving Ushuaia?
Awaking in the cold, and with a full bladder, I hurriedly throw my clothes on and speed walk a few blocks. Now fully awake, back at the van, KC and I prepare to head out of town. We swing by the laundromat at 9 AM, hoping to get an early start, and notice they are closed… all day. It’s Sunday, and my heart sinks realizing that we won’t be able to get our laundry for another 24 hours. I stand outside, knocking and calling for 20 minutes to no avail. The hotel next door confirms it. They’re closed on Sundays.
How could I be so stupid? Seriously, not realizing that today was Sunday and there’d be a good chance they wouldn’t be open. My god, the stupidity. The utter stupidity. I’m in shock. We even go to the visitor center to see what options I have. If anyone knows the owner and can track them down. I’m racking my brain on how to find where this person lives and beg them to come in a get our laundry. It’s right through the store front window. I was staring directly at it, listening to their phone ring and it’s me calling. A centimeter of glass separated me. Talk about feeling helpless. This made it all the more frustrating. It’s right there! What the fuck!! It’s right fucking there!!!
Feeling defeated, KC and I weigh our options. We accept our fate. We’re spending another day in Ushuaia… damn it. This means, in one day, we have to make the drive all the way back to Punta Arenas. Google Maps says it’s eight hours. But not just any eight hours. Eight hours of turbulent, wind-torn, white knuckled, speeding and passing down one-lane-highway countryside, Tierra del Fuego. Luckily speed limits here are barely a recommendation. My mind wanders in a tangent, pondering the amount of caffeine it will require to maintain the necessary attention span. Dread and helplessness mostly describe my emotions at this exact moment.
We decide to make the most of it. We drive out of town to hike Lake Esmerelda, which was already our plan for the morning. A stunning, albeit touristy, leisurely hike to a glacial lake tucked at the base of a typical Patagonian jagged peak. Primed from our Cerro Guanaco hike the day before, KC and I breeze through the trail that amount to one-third the elevation gain, and roughly half the distance.
We wrap the hike up and push on down the road to a gin distillery, a restaurant well known for their Cordero (Fuegian-style lamb BBQ from the night before), and an out-of-season ski resort. With the extra day, and zero prior agenda, we lazily move along from stop to stop, mostly window shopping to enjoy the luxuries the region has to offer.
Next we make the long drive, down the pot-holed dirt road to Estancia Haberton, a small remote farm/museum combination that sustains itself with a vast garden and boat trips out to Isla Martillo. This is the destination for the bus trip before hopping on a boat to Isla Martillo to walk with the penguins I mentioned earlier. We stop in at the café and see other tourists waiting to do just this. I quickly attempt to craft a sales pitch in my head to weasel our way onto the boat… I’ve got nothing.
KC and I order a couple pints of Austral amber ale, a regional brewery that we’ve seen a lot of. We revel in the beauty out the window of the café and over the harbor, and savor a delicious pint after an unexpected day. All things considered, we are lucky to still be down here, and we admit, despite having a long day ahead of us, today has been pleasant and rewarding. To cap off Estancia Haberton, KC and I boil some water out the back of the van and savor two cups of dehydrated noodles, mine spicy, hers chicken. The sun is warm and the wind has calmed. Taking small sips of broth with each twisted forkful of noodles, KC and I smile at each other, thankful for the day that started off with such regret.
Day 8: Racing back to Punta Arenas
I’m standing outside the laundromat, 8:45 AM. They don’t open for another 15 minutes. A lady and someone else (her son?) walk up and inform me that they are not open yet. I pretend not to understand and indicate that we need to leave town and I would like my laundry now (respectfully of course, don’t worry). She seems annoyed, but relents. I have the ticket ready and the money already in an extended hand. I snatch the yellow sack of clothes and race out the door, not even checking to see what’s inside.
I swing the side door open, toss the old sleeping bag case (our collective dirty laundry bag) in the van, hop in and start the van. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” KC rolls her eyes. She thinks I’m being dramatic. And as we pull out of town, a fleeting, graduation-goggles-like feeling rushes over me as I mourn the end of lifetime experience that loomed so heavy on my mind for so long.
Hypnotized by the winding highway and passing guanacos, I reminisce on the past week and chat with KC about what’s next. It’s something we talk about often, given that there always is a next stop. But I find my mind wondering back to my time here, and I hope that this feeling lingers for a bit longer. Tierra del Fuego, this fictitious beast high on my minds pedestal, has been tamed. A part of me is triumphant, but mostly what I’m feeling is sadness. Sadness that it’s over, potentially never to return. After all, it is a big world, and I only have one life to see it all. I do believe I may find myself in Ushuaia again, when Antarctica is calling our names (and there’s a surplus of $12k burning a hole in our pocket). Until then, this turbulent, rugged edge of the world will hopefully sit here, unchanged. And I will be looking for another far off land, renowned enough to keep me up at night in anticipation for the unknown.
