Deciding the offer of a free tango lesson was too good to pass up, even though it sounded too good to be true, a few other hostel guests and I ventured over to the old Harrod’s department store on Florida (a busy, pedestrian-only street) near Lavalle. The free tango class tuned out to be part of a larger two-week tango festival that we’d seen advertised before, but kind of ignored. The seven of us - a student from Turkey, a brother and sister from Holland, a couple from Scotland, a student on study-abroad from New Zealand and I - turned out to be the only non-Argentines at the class, even though it was for beginners.

The instructors demonstrate a new move.

My first partner (they made us switch twice) told me that tango was a true Rio de la Plata (the area encompassing greater Buenos Aires, a few nearby provinces and the country of Uruguay) experience. I couldn’t figure out how to ask her in Spanish why she needed a beginner tango then without be rude…

My tango partner, Fernando

On the other end of the former department store, a much larger number of people who already knew how to tango danced to live tango music. In between them and us, vendors sold high heels for dancing, CDs and a variety of other tango paraphernalia. I now know about five tango steps and met some random middle-aged Porteños (people from Buenos Aires), so … success!

As this wasn’t a touristy event, we didn’t get this story but many times when people are introduced to tango, they are told that the dance started with only men. Instructors don’t want to admit to tourists that it originated between men and prostitutes.