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Eduardo accompanied me to the bus station.
I hopped aboard my bus and I was off to the second country of my sojourn,
the plan: to buy a motorcycle, explore Paraguay, and continue from there.
The trip was to take 18 hours. I struck up conversation with the woman next
to me. Her name was Monica. She was from Paraguay but in living in Argentina
with her sister to make money as the economy, as "bad" as it is
in Argentina, is still richer in resources than in Paraguay. I told her of
my trip and the inspiration of Che Guevara. She did not know who he was. I
began to explain what he stood for and what his life consisted of. At the
end of my discourse I found I had gathered a little audience. I enjoyed chatting
with her, while others listened, about the current conditions and possible
solutions. About 15 or 16 hours into the trip we stopped at the border. The
bus driver collected money from most of the travelers, but not me. He said
for internationals, "now was not the time." We all then debussed
and everyone filed into a line at some window outside. I went to the bathroom.
I came out and one of the bus drivers told me to get in a line. I obliged.
After waiting for some time, I noticed that everyone was receiving there documents
here in this line that I had been instructed to enter. I thought that was
strange, so I slipped to the front and asked the official looking dude, was
I in the right line having a New Zealand passport and all. He said no, I had
to get in the other line. This was the line that everyone was in to begin
with. But to make matters worse, another two buses had arrived and all the
passengers from the other two buses had lined up, resulting in an amusement
park style line with me at the butt. After a little bit (10-20 minutes) the
same official dude I had asked came out and waved me up to the front. He took
my passport and disappeared. He reappeared in a few minutes asking where my
visa was. I said in the passport. He looked again. The deal was that when
I arrived in Argentina, they did not stamp the first page for some reason.
They had stamped the third. I think it was due to simple inattentiveness on
their part. I pointed it out and he told me to go to another window. I again
followed directions. I got to the other window and was again asked for my
visa. I thought it was the same deal, but it wasn't. Apparently one is required
to obtain a consular visa from the Paraguayan Consulate and pay some amount
of money before entering the country. I explained to them I did not know this,
and assumed it was like the majority of America Latina where you can just
enter on a free tourist visa. They told me I would have to go back to Argentina.
I was a bit disquieted by this and stared at him for a good twenty seconds.
He then silently looked at his partner. She looked around and then back at
him, and then as if in turn, he again turned to regard me. After about a minute
a silence with a line of people also looking on in interest, he told me "you
have two options." If that was some key statement, it was lost on me,
because with that his partner then continued to process the individuals in
line and the general sounds and commotions continued.
I then headed for my bus. I got on an empty bus. The driver, who did not look familiar, asked me was I on this bus. "I thought I was" I replied. "What company?" "Experso Sur." "Oh, they left." "Son of shit!" I exclaimed. I rotated, popped my head out of the door, and sure enough this was not an Experso Sur bus. I looked ahead to the ramp back to the highway to see a bus braking. I broke out into a full sprint. I caught the bus, climbed the short flight to a bus full of laughter. Cracking up myself, I returned to my seat. Monica told me that when the bus started the whole bus rose as one and screamed for the driver to stop. "We were missing one compañero." That sentence hit me hard. The hearts of the people are truly amazing.
To Paraguay Then!
