Thursday evening (9pm Brasilia time)
May 3rd, 2007
GPS: S54 47.494, W068 18.944
Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
End of the world 

I suck at Backgammon.  I'm not even kidding.  Used to play with Dad all the time, but when Justin picked up the board for the FIRST time today, he kicked my ass three times in a row.  What a jerk.  

Something really funny happened earlier today, at dinner, and i'm a little sore at myself for not repeating it.  After we'd had our supper, Robbie (our spanish 'expert') told the waiter that he was very talented.  Then he corrected himself, and said 'talento'.  We questioned his logic with this, and he replied that you can basically speak spanish by adding an 'o' to the end of any english word, and that this would be correct and accurate “at least eighty percent of the time”.

“Are you sure-o?”
“Boy, I can't wait to get the cheque-o”
“I hope we have breakfast tomorrow so I can get some Cheeri-o”
“Robo iso ano idioto”

Our cousin, Casey recommended to us that we try an Argentinian beer called Quilmes.  In the picture section, you'll be able to see some images of us enjoying this fine Argentinian beer.  Actually, I haven't had a beer here that i haven't enjoyed.  They're all pretty light, though, and i usually go in for beers like Guinness and Kilkenny.  Anyways, not too shabby.

I've heard about siesta-time before, and always in a context that made me think that people in very hot countries would take the most uncomfortable time of the day off, and go home, coming back to work later in the day.  Let me set this straight.  Ushuaia is in NO way a warm place to visit.  But good luck shopping between the hours of noon and four pm!  At least some restaurants were open.

Tomorrow the plan is to get up bright and early at 10am (7am MDT) and head on over to the customs agent that'll be handling the release of our motorcycles.  Dad's got the contact info for him, so yeah.

We just found out that the engineering on our GPSs, while amazingly good with the handheld unit, is sorely lacking when one tries to use both the charging station and the handlebar mount at the same time.  We're gonna have to drill some holes and cut some plastic on the mounts.  

In other news, Rob found a fancy place that advertises 'Tierra del Fuego King Crab', so we've got tomorrow night's dinner set.  

I would be really sad if i made it all the way down here WHERE PENGUINS LIVE and didn't get to see any.  We've discussed the idea of hopping on a tour plane or something to buzz over the antarctic, but apparently there may be a place on this side of the ocean where penguins kick it.  Magellan penguins.  Sweet.

It's practically 9:30pm now, and none of us have had much sleep in the past few days, and practically none of it horizontal (airplane seats are the suck).

Good night, everyone!
Ryan Noble
Ushuaia, Argentina