Tierra del Fuego Warnings Or Dangers Tips by globetrott Top 5 Page for this destination

dont walk over the old, rusty Rio Grande bridge

The old bridge over the Rio Grande looks very interesting from a large distance, but once you get close to it, you will see that it is extremely dangerous to step on it ! This bridge dates back to 1920 and you are not allowed to walk over it ! In case that you want to do it anyway, take a look first for the many rusty or broken parts of the construction !
It is a fascinating construction of steel and wood and it was the only way to get across the river for all cars and also for the cattle, that was taken to the closeby freezing-point. The bridge was produced in the USA and assembled here by local engeneers.
Rusting takes a lot longer in this part of the world !

guanakos,strong winds & cyclers

Cyclers and cardrivers have to fight all the time with the strong, cold winds along the N3, the Panamericana Highway, and sometimes it might happen that the cycklers are using the wrong side of the road, so be carefull ! Obviously these cyclers feel safer themselves, when they would be able to see the other cars oncoming...
Guanakos are a smaller species of lamas and we saw quite a lot of them, while driving around in the area north of Tolhuin. At one side they are quite shy, but they might panic and run into your car, so you better watch out for them , while driving on the N3 and even more so in the side-roads.

Dust gets really everywhere !

Be careful, when driving the dust-roads in Tierra del Fuego / Fireland : The dust will get really everywhere, even through the locked doors.We had some camera-equipment in the back of our car and had the feeling it would be safe there, but see for yourself in my photos : it is clean only at the places, that were covered by something and you really have to completely clean all of your belongings afterwards !

driving distances, dust & rocky roads

Driving through the wide landscapes of Tierra del Fuego / Fireland is a great adventure by itself, but you have to be careful when estimating driving-times, because that depends very much on the (mostly lousy) road conditions. Roads that are marked as quite good roads might finally be rocky roads without any ashpalt, narrow tracks with just one single useable track in the middle and the oncoming trafic will hopefully be able to see you ahead of time and search for a good place to let pass you by.
In my pics here you see the road to San Pablo. From Ushuaia it starts as the ordinary N3 , the Panamericana Highway, but north-east of Tolhuin you will have to drive about 30 km on a rocky dust-road. Driving this road might be dangerous, because mostly it follows the landscape and there are lots of bends, where trees are covering your sight and you might see the oncoming trafic too late. The road is also in most places just wide enough for a single car in the middle, where everybody is driving and on the "hard shoulder" you have to be careful and drive very slow !

The end of the highway is NO highway at all

I have no idea, who had the idea to call this road from Ushuaia to Lapataia a highway, at many places it is smaller than an ordinary road. The very end of the Highway Nr.3 to Lapataia is quite narrow and just a sandy road through the National Park, at some places you will be lucky not to meet onward trucks or buses, because there is just space enough for a bus in one direction and there are lots of buses going there every day.