Río Gallegos is the capital of Santa Cruz, a city of eighty-five thousand on the Atlantic coast, near the southern tip of mainland Argentina, and it is the kind of place that you reach rather than choose. It sits on the estuary of the river of the same name, where the tide, among the largest in the world, drains the shallow water off the mudflats twice a day and leaves flocks of birds feeding on the exposed shore. Flamingos, ducks and shorebirds gather there, and the wide sky over the water is full of gulls. The wind, which blows for much of the year from the west, is a constant presence.
The city grew in the late nineteenth century with the wool boom, when British and other settlers established vast sheep estancias on the steppe, and the wool was shipped from here to Europe. Some of the old corrugated-iron houses in the centre date from that time. Today the city is a centre of administration, oil and gas, and it has a long main avenue, a modest museum and cafes where locals gather for mate and medialunas.
For riders coming down Ruta 40 from the north, Río Gallegos is a place of arrival. The long road from the Andean lakes and El Chaltén crosses a flat, treeless steppe, with strong crosswinds that can push a bike sideways, and the surface is mostly paved. Guanacos and rheas appear along the verge, and distances between settlements are large. At the city, the route joins Ruta 3, and Ruta 40 runs on to its end near Cabo Vírgenes, with a lighthouse and a colony of Magellanic penguins in the season. Some seventy kilometres to the south lies the border with Chile and the Strait of Magellan.
Fuel is easy in the city, which has many stations, though supplies in Santa Cruz can run short at times, so fill up whenever you can. Weather is cold and windy even in summer, so carry layers and wind-proof gear. The best months are November to March.