Most visitors see Tierra del Fuego from Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel. The rest of the island is another country: southern beech forest giving way to open steppe, guanacos on the plains, estancias founded by pioneers who arrived by boat and carriage, and, on a beach of the Chilean side, a small colony of king penguins found nowhere else closer than South Georgia. In four days and about 1,000 km, this loop crosses the Andes where they run east to west, reaches two oceans and two countries, and comes back to Ushuaia.
Day 1 · Harberton and over the Andes to Río Grande
Highlight · Lago Escondido and Lago Fagnano from the Garibaldi pass, before the forest gives way to guanaco country.
Drive · 290 km · 6 h
Out of Ushuaia on the Ruta 3, the road that starts in Buenos Aires and ends here, and then 65 km, half of them on gravel through wet forest, to Estancia Harberton, the oldest on the island and a national historic monument: plain wooden buildings under corrugated iron, gardens, stone piers, and the story of the store that once supplied the whole south of Tierra del Fuego. Back on the Ruta 3, the road climbs over the Fuegian Andes, with a stop at the Garibaldi pass above Lago Escondido and Lago Fagnano, then drops out of the forest into steppe and guanaco country.
Night · Río Grande
Day 2 · King penguins on Bahía Inútil
Highlight · Some eighty king penguins, nearly a metre tall, on the beach of Bahía Inútil with the warden.
Drive · 270 km · 5 h 30
Across the open plains and the San Sebastián border into the Chilean half of the island. About 160 km from Río Grande, on the shore of Bahía Inútil, a private reserve protects a colony of some eighty king penguins, nearly a metre tall, seen from land and from a walk along the beach with the warden. Then on to Porvenir, on the Strait of Magellan, where the night is.
Night · Porvenir
Day 3 · Back to Argentina and a pioneer estancia
Highlight · Corrugated iron and southern beech at Rolito, an estancia built by hand by its first settler.
Drive · 305 km · 6 h 30
Back across the border to Estancia Rolito, a family estancia in the heart of the island, in the transition between the northern steppe and the forested south. It was founded in the 1920s by a settler who built the first house with his own hands and then a sawmill for the rest; the buildings keep the Fuegian rural style of corrugated iron and southern beech, and the family still raises sheep and cattle.
Night · Río Grande
Day 4 · Back over the Andes to Ushuaia
Highlight · A slow morning at Rolito, then back across the mountains to the Beagle Channel.
Drive · 150 km · 2 h 30
A slow morning at Rolito, and in the afternoon back across the mountains to Ushuaia.
