Porvenir

Porvenir is the main town of the Chilean half of Tierra del Fuego, a small port of painted wooden houses on a sheltered bay across the Strait of Magellan from Punta Arenas. It was founded during the gold rush of the late nineteenth century and lived afterwards from the sheep estancias that took over the island. Beyond the town the land opens into steppe, and to the east lies Bahía Inútil, the wide bay that cuts deep into the island. On its shore a private reserve protects a colony of king penguins, nearly a metre tall, a bird otherwise found only on the subantarctic islands.

The way in is by water. The ferry from Punta Arenas crosses the strait in about two hours to Bahía Chilota, next to Porvenir; further north, the short crossing at Primera Angostura lands near Cerro Sombrero, a small oil town in the north of the island. A night in Porvenir, with the penguins in the afternoon or the next morning, turns the road between Punta Arenas and Ushuaia into a journey across Tierra del Fuego: gravel roads past estancias, the border at San Sebastián, and on south to Río Grande and the Fuegian Andes. It is self-drive country, with long distances and few people.

October to March is the season, with long days and the estancias open. The king penguins are on the beach all year, and the wind is always there; the ferries can stop when it blows hardest.