Journey from Patagonia to the Land of Fire

I am writing about my journey to Ushuaia purely because nothing I had read beforehand about taking an overland route really went into detail about what happens, so as you will see below I was fairly unprepared. This makes for a good story afterwards but at the time was a little stressful and bewildering (especially when I had already made a 20 hour journey prior to this one).

Most buses to Ushuaia leave from Rio Gallegos, which is where I picked mine up from too. Firstly, the best piece of advice I can give to anyone travelling by bus in Argentina is (in my experience) that most will arrive at the final destination later than scheduled so if you are getting a connecting bus leave at least 2 to 3 hours between them to be on the safe side.

I was travelling with Tecni-Austral and when the coach arrived it looked more like a police riot van with a big heavy grill over the windscreen. I'd heard that some of the roads were unpaved so assumed this is why they had the added protection and not because we were going to be attacked by pitchfork wielding locals - but you never know!

The coach wasn't the best I've been on, but considering the journey should take around 10 to 12 hours and was during the day I wasn't too worried. 

At the Terminal de Omnibus in Rio Gallegos make your first port of call the desk of your coach provider. For part of the journey, which I was unaware of at the time, the coach will cross into Chile so it is sort of like checking in for a flight but not so stringent. The person at the counter will check your ticket and cross your name off the list of passengers due to travel. 

The only reason I went to the desk was out of habit to check the bus was running etc. However, a couple of passengers didn't do this and had to rush back inside to do so before they were allowed on-board.

Unless you want a hefty fine, make sure you dispose of or eat any fruit and vegetable products you have on you. I don't know if this is true of all the coach companies but the host on the bus I was on came round just before the border with a bin for any food you might want to throw away.

I panic ate the two carrots I had on me much to the amusement of the host and some of my fellow passengers. Well, they were likely the only vegetables I was going to have that day so I wasn't going to waste them. I also had a couple of bananas but they hadn't travelled well so I was happy to dispose of them.

The border formalities took a little while as you have to be stamped out of Argentina and stamped back into Chile as well as putting all your hand luggage through an x-ray.

Back on the bus and by this point having consulted the map app I have on my phone, I guessed we would be reaching a water crossing. The map wasn't wrong and soon enough we reached it.

The weather by now had turned and was windy, rainy and cold so I'm not going to lie I probably didn't appreciate crossing the Strait of Magellan as much as I could have done.

Also, bearing in mind I had come from further north than a lot of people on my coach I looked like that one tourist who comes back to the UK from warmer climes still in summer clothes.

Unlike the majority of other passengers on the coach, who looked liked the contents of an outdoor adventure store had thrown up on them, I'm pretty sure I was the only one rocking flip flops! I did have a fleece and was wearing trousers albeit of the thin cotton kind so I didn't look entirely like a fish out of water.

Once we reached the other side we got back on the bus and had another couple of hours driving along unpaved roads - imagine a coach swaying from side to side like a boat rocking on a rough sea and that's pretty much what the journey felt like!

We reached the next border crossing and were stamped out of Chile (this was much quicker than getting into the country). Don't worry at this point if you haven't got a stamp stamping you back into Argentina as the Argentinian border post is a bit further up the road.

When we reached Rio Grande, which is about 3 hours from Ushuaia, we are told to get off the bus as there will be another coach arriving to take us the rest of the way. No indication as to how long this might be, but at least I wasn't the only one in this predicament as the majority of people on the coach were going on to Ushuaia. After about 30 minutes the new coach arrived we all piled on and 3 hours later arrived at the end of the world only 3.5 hours late!

Despite all the faff involved and getting on and off buses and ferries, I'm glad I took an overland route. Although the scenery did get very monotonous at times, it was stunning - vast plains of windswept, sun bleached emptiness occasionally punctuated with the odd hill, lake or lone estancia. 

As we drove into Ushuaia, even though it was dark, I could tell we were in Tierra del Fuego as the terrain became more mountainous and I imagine in daylight it would have been quite spectacular.