April 27, 2006
Day 211
I had to go back to the Paraguayan consulate three times today. The first time, I learned that my visa application had been accepted and I paid my fee. I was told to come back in an hour to pick up my passport, which I did, but it still wasn't ready. Finally, on the third try, I had it. Each time I went to the consulate, I had to push through hordes of people waiting to get nationalized. It was a pain in the ass, but at least it's over.
This afternoon, I made my plans to get out of Buenos Aires. I went to the bus station with hopes of leaving for Iguazu Falls tonight. However, I learned that because it takes 18 hours to get there by bus, the buses all left in the afternoon or early evening. I was hoping to leave at night. I ended up buying a ticket for early tomorrow afternoon and going back to my hostel to check back in.
However, in the time it took for me to go to the bus station and back, the hostel had filled up. I walked over to the hostel where I had stayed before, and met up again with Kathleen from my cruise. Tomorrow, she will fly back home to the US.
The hostel has free tango lessons every Thursday, and I was finally able to partake. A bunch of us took turns learning an 8-step dance for an hour. It didn't seem too hard, but then I found out that we only learned one tango dance out of about fifty that exist.
Everyone was excited after the lesson to be learning the tango, so we decided to go to a "Milonga," a place where actual tango dancing occurs. When we got there, the tango lessons were just ending, but they were starting salsa lessons, so we stuck around. Everyone at the club had various levels of experience dancing the salsa, and everyone in my group had zero, so it wasn't too intimidating. I think I stepped on about 100 feet, but it was still fun.
