I like the open / pini approach.
For the north/south problem, North has bears and south has penguins. Ma soweli / ma waso could work. After all, "artic" means, literally, "land of bears" from its greek root.
Other option is considering north as the magnetic pole, the way compasses point to, as the default direction. So tawa nasin, towars the way would be north and "nasin ante", simply the other way, south
I live in southern Spain
Mi lon ma Epanja pi nasin ante