April 23, 2006
Day 207
The party last night was late, but not very significant otherwise. It was pretty funny when people kept asking me how long I've been in Buenos Aires and I would say, "2 hours." Before I knew it, it was 8:00 and time for me to get to sleep, but I was still really far from my hostel.
Someone told me that all I had to do was go left five blocks, then left again two more blocks to get to the nearest stop for bus 140. I didn't have a map, so I just had to walk and hope that the bus would come. When I got to the intersection that was described to me, I found a bus stop, but didn't see any signs for bus 140. Still, the sign that was up was damaged, so the part that said 140 could have easily been broken off, if it in fact existed.
A few other buses came and went, but there was no sign of mine. Normally, I would ask somebody if I was at the right stop, but at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, Buenos Aires is a ghost town. Not one person came within my view while I was waiting. Finally, I decided to walk another block to see if the stop happened to be there. As soon as I got to the next block, bus 140 flew past me and didn't stop because I wasn't at the official bus stop. I had to wait for the next bus, but at least I knew I was at the right place. 15 minutes later, I was on my way home.
On the way back, a new worry crossed my mind: Last night I was told that I could only stay at the hostel for one night. That night had come and gone, and checkout time was rapidly approaching. That meant that if the hostel was still sold out, I would have to pack up my stuff and look for a new hostel in a state of exhaustion after not having touched the bed I paid for. Luckily, somebody canceled a reservation and I was allowed to stay put for another night. I finally crashed at 9:00.
When I got up, I started to think about where to go next. After being in Argentina for about three months, it was time to do something new. North was the only logical direction, but that presented a whole new set of problems: visas. Americans need to buy visas for both Paraguay and Brazil, the next two countries I want to visit. I need to go to the embassies of those countries to buy the necessary visas, but of course everything is closed on Sundays. I'll try to get that taken care of tomorrow.
