There are days that are simply about the crossing — and this is one of them. From Río Gallegos on the Argentine steppe, the road heads south through a vast, windswept plain to the edge of a continent, passes into Chile, crosses the Strait of Magellan by ferry at its narrowest point, and arrives on the island of Tierra del Fuego. By the time you reach Río Grande in the late afternoon, you will have cleared two international borders, sailed briefly across one of the world's most storied waterways, and driven across landscapes where the sky feels oversized and the land is almost empty.
The Drive South to the Border
The day begins at 8:00 in Río Gallegos. Fuel up at the YPF station before leaving town — it's the last reliable Argentine fuel before the border — and then head south on Ruta Nacional 3. The drive to the border is around 60 kilometres of open pampa: flat, treeless, and crossed by a wind that rarely lets up. Guanacos appear in small groups at the roadside. The landscape does not build to anything; it simply is.