Saturday evening (6:30pm Brasilia time)
May 5th, 2007
GPS: S54 47.494, W068 18.944
Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
End of the world 

Weather: 4.5 degrees C, snow/rain/sleet.  Very windy.

We're all going stir crazy, sitting around this hotel.  We've been to all the shops, and we've been to every restaurant we can find that's open during siesta (that's that's the time of day we get hungry).  And we're all getting sick of siesta.  

We DID get to see Osvaldo today, and he had some frackin' wonderful news for us.  Instead of the ship coming in on the eighth or ninth, he'd confirmed earlier in the day that the ship will be in on the seventh, and he has arranged for us to have a warehouse to work in so that we can get the bikes out of the crates and ready for the road.

Woot!

In a bit of a celebratory mood, Rob convinced us to go up to this ski chalet to find the World's Most Southern Geocache.  We went there, but he couldn't find it.  Probably someone stole it or something.

I meant to write a few days ago about keys and doors here in Argentina.  On every business back in Canada, likely in the states too, doors to businesses open outwards.  I assume this is in case of fire or floor or something, it would be possible for the doors to be pushed outwards.

Here, most of the doors open inwards.  This throws us all the time, because I'll initially think a business is closed, curse siesta again, and then find out that it was actually open.  Not all doors do this, so i've learned to test them both ways before I curse siesta.  

The keys, too, are very strange.  You can see what I mean in the pictures I posted for day two – they're kinda like old-timey skeleton keys, and it's very difficult to line them up properly in the locks so that you can open whatever it is that you're trying to open.  It's not just a few places that use this style, too – they're everywhere.

Speaking of dad, i forgot to mention something – his complete and utter inability to hold on to vital documents.  Three times, now, he's lost his passport – once when we first arrived in Buenos Aires, and it turned out to be in Rob's pocket, and nobody has any idea how it got in there.  Another time here in Ushuaia, and it turned out to be in his pocket, and a third time it turned out to be in a folder in his hand.  Yesterday, at the restaurant with the awesome fettuccine, he managed to leave his credit card behind.  The waiter (who was awesome, by the way) chased us down a block and into a store to return dad's card.  

Other than that, we've all been playing too much backgammon, or sleeping, or reading.  Wish the bikes were here so that we could have something to do – of course, in a week, i'll be all like 'hey, remember when we were in ushuaia and all we had to do for a week was sleep and eat and drink?'.

We're gonna go out later tonight and see if anything's going on for Cinco de Mayo.  Although I doubt it, because wikipedia (<!-- m --><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo</a><!-- m -->) tells me that it's a Mexican holiday.  Damn.

Two more days until we can start getting our bikes together and get out on the road.

Ryan Noble
Ushuaia, Argentina