WHERE ARE PATAGONIA AND TIERRA DEL FUEGO

The word ‘Patagonia’ immediately evokes a remote, freezing and uninhabited land.
‘Tierra del Fuego’, ‘the land of fire’, is the complete opposite of what you’d expect from a place with that name.
Going to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego is a dream come true, the symbol of an adventurous, naturalistic and hiking trip to the end of the world.
But first, where are Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego?

It’s not uncommon for political geography to clash with our own ideas and worldview.
Beyond what is written in books, there are borders defined by geography (especially in the case of certain islands: Sardinia, Corsica, Ireland, Zanzibar, Atlantic and Pacific Islands), by language (the Basque Country in its original language is called Euskal Herria, ‘the people who speak Euskera’, the Basque language) and by history and traditions (e.g. Scotland, Catalonia, Occitania, Lapland-Sapmi, Palestine, Transnistria etc).

In addition to the last mentioned countries, we can add Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.

By this term we consider the southern region of the American continent, which is theoretically divided between Argentina and Chile.
For us, Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia are often used interchangeably, although in reality Tierra del Fuego is the area south of Patagonia, south of the Strait of Magellan.

On 28 November 1520, the Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães (better know as Ferdinand Magellan) became the first European to reach Patagonia.
The name comes from the word he used to refer to the natives of that land, the ‘Patagonians’.
He also saw the smoke from fires lit, for warmth or other reasons, by the Yamana people, who settled these lands perhaps around 8,000 BC.
That’s why those areas became known as the “Land of Smoke“, before later changing to the ‘Land of Fire’, ‘Tierra del Fuego’.

Magellan crossed the strait that later got his name, arriving for the first time in what he named the Pacific Ocean.
Until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the Strait of Magellan was the safest transit point between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

I just want to make sure I will talk about Patagonia including Tierra del Fuego and how it is currently divided politically, since some areas are disputed or represent a border between two different countries:

Argentian Patagonia

– Areas actually Argentinian (from north to south): San Carlos de Bariloche, Perito Moreno, El Chalten, El Calafate, Rio Gallegos, Ushuaia, Beagle Channel.

Chilean Patagonia

– Areas actually Chilean (from north to south): Puerto Montt, O’Higgins, Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales, Punta Arenas, Porvenir, Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel, Puerto Williams, Cape Horn.

HOW TO GET TO PATAGONIA

There are lot of ways to reach this southern extreme point.
However, I advise you to book any flights a few months in advance.

PLANE:

– Ushuaia has frequent daily connections with Buenos Aires and some with El Calafate Airport.
– Punta Arenas has the same with Santiago de Chile and Puerto Montt.

CAR:

– The legendary Ruta 40 is Argentina’s spectacular road that runs parallel to the Andes Mountains, crossing 3,250 miles of incredible landscapes.
Once you get to Rio Gallegos, Ushuaia is another 600 km away: a small part to be crossed by ferry and almost half in Chilean territory.
– The Carretera Austral Ruta CH-7, links Puerto Montt with Villa O’Higgins, covering 1,240 km mostly on unpaved roads.
The route also requires the use of 3 ferriers, which will take about 7 hours in total.
To reach Punta Arenas by car, however, you’ll need to enter Argentina and connect to Ruta 40.
I’d suggest crossing the border at Chile Chico and from there visiting Perito Moreno.
You could drive to Ushuaia or to El Chalten, continue to El Calafate, enter Chile via Torres del Paine and finally reach Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas.

BUS:

– Many local companies have an online purchase service, but European cards aren’t accepted for payment.
If you stay in a place for several days, it’s a good idea to buy a ticket for the following routes asap.
Otherwise, you can send an e-mail in Spanish to the bus company.
They usually keep the seat reserved and you will pay on site no later than the day before departure.

I managed to avoid any issues on my trip from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas by paying in advance at the hostel and having them take the bus ticket for me.

SHIP:

– Many cruise ships dock at Ushuaia, and they often head out along the Atlantic or Pacific coast or as far as the Malvinas Islands and South Georgia.
Ushuaia is also the departure and arrival port for the legendary and mythical sailings to Antarctica.

WHAT TO DO

PUNTA ARENAS

The town was founded in 1848 and is a great base for exploring the Chilean area, and it’s also connected to Ushuaia.

The Torres del Paine National Park, which is about 100 km from the town of Puerto Natales, is one of Chile’s most important and visited national parks.
The granite mountains and glaciers are home to pumas, condors, flamingos, foxes and guanacos.

EMPEROR PENGUIN PARK

If you’re coming to Patagonia to experience the untouched nature, seeing the emperor penguins is an unmissable experience.
The Parque Pingüino Rey is located at km 14.5 of Ruta Y-85, in Bahía Inútil.
For me it was very exciting to see the emperor penguins, but at the same time a blow to the heart to see them in tall grass instead of on snow and ice.
In extreme places like Patagonia, Antarctica and the North Pole, we really see the effects of climate change, including melting glaciers and rising seas and oceans.
The ones who suffer the consequences are helpless and defenceless animals such as penguins, polar bears, whales, seals, walruses etc.

To get to the Parque Pingüino Rey, you have to sail through the Strait of Magellan to Porvenir, from where it is about 100 km away.
You can also arrive by car from the north, driving along Ruta 255 and 257. In this case, too, you’ll have to cross the Strait of Magellan as well, and the timing is similar.

If you’re coming from Ushuaia, you can drive along Ruta 3 to the San Sebastian border. Then, turn left and continue on Ruta 257 towards Chile until you reach the Parque Pingüino Rey, which is about 350 km in total.

USHUAIA

Argentina and Chile are rivals in so many ways. They also have to fight for the “title” of the southernmost city in the world.

There are less than 100 people living in the village of Puerto Toro, on the chilean island of Navarino.
They are too few to take this title from the Argentine city of Ushuaia, which has 56,000 inhabitants and is just north of Puerto Toro.

From the port, ships set sail for Antarctica, which makes me understand that I’ll be back here again.
I was here during the southern winter. It was snowing and the wind, which came directly from the South Pole, dropped the temperature well below zero.
I love the heat, but here at the end of the world, I expect and I want to see this climate.
Heading up to the Martial Mountains, which are behind the city, the landscape is even more stunning: Ushuaia is squeezed between the Beagle Channel, the glaciers, the snow and the woods.

It’s impossible to resist joining one of the many excursions that depart from here.

TIERRA DEL FUEGO NATIONAL PARK

In this spectacular 4 miles² Argentine National Park, you will never stop feeling excited.

Panoramic walkways allow you to take incredible photos with waterfalls, rivers, beech forests, mountains, valleys, glaciers and glacial lakes.
If you’re lucky, you might even see animals that live there, like guanacos, llamas, foxes, condors, peaks of Patagonia.
There are also marine species such as mussels, scallops, crabs, sardines, jellyfish.

From here you can board the ‘prison train’.

TREN DE LA FIN DEL MUNDO

If Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world, then everything nearby is also “the southernmost in the world”.
That applies to a bar, a hotel, a school, and so on.
Needless to say, there is also “the train at the end of the world“.
My life as a traveller is linked to the Trans-Siberian train, and I had the opportunity to travel on the old steam train at the end of the world.
This was the means used by prisoners to transport wood to the Ushuaia prison.
The train of the end of the world was born in 1902 to be the train of prisoners.
From the prison, it skirted the old city and ended its run in the forests.
As the wood decreased, the length of the railway through the trees grew.
This lasted until 1947, when the prison was closed.
The railway line was finally abandoned in 1952, but it was brought back to life in 1994 as a tourist train.

EXCURSION IN THE BEAGLE CHANNEL

There are a few companies in Ushuaia that offer boat or catamaran trips along the Beagle Channel.
It’s really exciting to see the city of Ushuaia receding as you sail south, and the landscape is absolutely stunning.

You’ll also see hundreds of sea lions and cormorants in their natural habitat on the islands of Los Lobos and Los Pájaros.
You can also get pretty close to the Isla Martillo beach, where the colony of Magellanic penguins nests during the summer season.
They are very curious animals and it’s not uncommon for them to swim close to people.

When you get to Cape Horn, you just start thinking about your next trip: further south, to Antarctica.

WHERE TO SLEEP

Patagonia is in the southern hemisphere, so the seasons are reversed from Europe, the US, Canada etc.
If you want to avoid disappointment, it’s a good idea to book hostels and hotels in advance during the high season, which runs from November to February.
This is especially important in the busiest places, such as El Calafate, El Chalten and Torres del Paine.

I used Punta Arenas as a base for excursion in Chile, and then to travelled to Ushuaia, which is a great base for activities in Argentine Patagonia.

CONCLUSIONS

A trip to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego is definitely one to be enjoyed.
The duration of your trip will determine what experiences you have.
If you can, I think that at least two weeks are necessary to enjoy the nature beauty and activities that this part of the world has to offer.

Flying between Santiago del Chile and Punta Arenas usually costs less than those between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia because there are several companies on that route, some of which are low cost.

I tried to combine all the talk about Patagonia into one topic, but it’s tricky because you’ve got to consider distances and differences between Argentina and Chile.
It’s also very difficult to suggest the best routes, as it depends on how much time you have and what transport you choose.

If you’re looking to fit in as much as possible in a week, you can see Torres del Paine and El Calafate from Punta Arenas and then continue to Porvenir and Ushuaia, where you can make several day trips.

I hope you find this post very useful for your next trip to the end of the world.
Please feel free to get in touch if you need any more information or just want to know how it goes.