Tierra del Fuego “land of fire” in Spanish is a raw, harsh, cold and beautiful place. It got its name from the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan when he sailed his boat by the island and saw the smoke from the indigenous habitants fires (these indigenous people who had lived on the island for over 6000 years would later become extinct in twenty years thanks to the British….). This giant island, separated from the mainland by the Straits of Magellan, has drawn explorers, pioneers and people making a living off the harsh land on their own terms away from civilization for centuries. It feels a bit like the wild west and after our week in Ushuaia we made a plan with Chloe and Toby to explore as much of the island as we could together.
Driving through the endless estancias in the Argentinian side of the island. Photo taken by the Conroys.
We started by exploring the old estancia of Haberton which was established in 1886 where we found out you can free camp with permission from the estancia. Our goal was to drive through Haberton and keep following the road until we got to where it ended, the farthest south we could drive in South America. Driving this was really symbolic for us because we went to the northern most point of South America in Colombia with Toby and Chloe almost a year earlier. It felt so right to bookend this awesome trip with our California road buddies.
Looking back onto Ushuaia. It is really pretty from this vantage point.
Moby (the truck) driving around the road that leads to the farthest southern point. We did not see another car the entire day I think.
Top and bottom of South America together. You can’t say that you shared something like that with many friends.
The road hugged the channel the entire way. It was very scenic. That is Hero in the distance.
Old signs of the cattle or sheep herding in the past. It was so cold, I can not even imagine living here!
We stopped for lunch and I had to put on both my down coats and I had on wool long underwear. This was the coldest place of the trip. Damp, bone chilling cold.
This is one of the three free areas on the estancia you can camp on. Not too shabby.
This was one of my favorite nights of the trip. The sun came out, we had a fire, it warmed up enough to enjoy the outside space, we made choripan, and we spent it talking late into the night about the trip with some of our closest friends. Awesome. Picture from the Conroys.
We woke up to another sunny day and decided to head to another part of the island.
After a few amazing days around Haberton we decided to go in search of some ship wrecks on the coast. The drive through one old estancia after another was really beautiful and it seemed like we saw more wild guanacos on the estancias than sheep and cows. The coast all over Tierra del Fuego is undeveloped other than a few fisherman here and there, and driving down the dirt road and seeing the giant ship stranded on the sand was so cool. The rusty skeleton of the ship just sat on the sand as the tides went in and out around it. It was spooky and oddly pretty and was exactly what I imagined somehow when I thought of the wild seas at the end of the earth.
I am not sure why this was so cool to me, but it just seemed like something I imagined being on this coast with the rough Atlantic seas.
We spent the day here and Tia loved running around the sand when the tide was out. The weather was actually nice again.
We free camped near the shipwreck which made it easy for us to visit during the different tide levels. That white blob in the distance is the XP.
So, for the record, we saw the sign after the boys explored the rusty death trap to my chagrin.
I will blame it on Toby =). He likes to climb on dangerous things.
One last shot as we were driving away.
After our time at the shipwreck, we decided to try something fun. We read there was a very small border crossing where you had to cross a river to get from Argentina back to Chile. From there we planned to drive to the end of the road on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego which was much more rural than the Argentinian side. To do this we had to both max out our gas tanks and jerry cans because there were no gas stations for hundreds and hundreds of miles, luckily we both have after market gas tanks with long-range, if not, we could not have done this next leg.
The border to Chile was super tranquilo, our easiest yet and the river crossing was super easy because the river was low when we were there. We heard from locals that is can become impassable in rain, so it would be good to find out before driving all the way out to it.
We had no idea what to expect on this leg of the trip, and we were impressed by the beauty of the place. The only negative is that it is so undeveloped there are not many side roads (just the one dirt road) so the exploring is somewhat limited.
Hero driving the switch backs down the mountain. We got snow on this pass one the way back. Picture from the Conroys.
The view as we got closer to the end of the road.
It was really stunning and so untraveled.
Toby and Chloe crossing the bridge. Love this pic of them.
The road on the maps literally disappeared and other overlanders told us you could not go further. We kept driving and finally came to this at the edge of a beautiful channel with hanging glaciers. Glad we don’t listen to others advice =). We camped here for the night and it was soooo cold. Our heater was a savior.
One of the glaciers on the channel. We saw a small cruise ship here for a few hours. I bet it was a great cruise.
The next day the sun came out and I went out for a walk alone on the beach through an old estancia. I can not believe they had cattle down here.
When the sun was out it did not look like we were at the end of South America near Antarctica. It looked almost tropical.
We were at the farthest point we could drive on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego, we had limited gas and nothing was around us and Toby and Chloe’s trucks alternator failed. The alternator generates electricity to recharge the battery. Without the alternator the battery would not charge and their truck could not move. It was not good. However, it was lucky enough that we were with them and we could use our truck to charge the battery every hour or so. Not the most ideal situation when you are literally at the end of the South American continent, but worse case scenario we could tow them. We had enough diesel left so we decided to start the long two day trek back to Punta Arenas where the mechanic that fixed our clutch was.
On the way back to Punta Arenas we passed by more shipwrecks and beautiful old estancias from the 1800s. We crossed the Straits of Magellan on the ferry near dark and desperate for a wind free place to camp for the night the boys sent Chloe and I into the Navel Base to ask them if we could drive onto the base and camp behind one of their buildings. They said yes and we got to camp next to the water and watch Magellan dolphins play in the wake of the ferry.
On the naval base. Great wind block!
Morning light. Picture from the Conroys.
On the way to Punta Arenas we passed Estancia Gregorio.
We stopped at the garage for another charge. =)
Skeletons of the dangerous Straits of Magellan.
This passage was the only way to cross from the Pacific to the Atlantic, however it was very treacherous.
Last shipwreck picture.
After two days and I think about ten charges later we got Toby and Chloe to Punta Arenas safely and sadly said our goodbyes. They were heading back to visit all the national parks, we were heading back to Argentina to head up the long Ruta 3 towards Buenos Aires.