My readings over the past year or two have made it clear there’s two restaurants that matter in Asuncion, the first of which is The Lido.

The Lido, for almost a century now, is the beating heart of Asuncion, I read that over and over in different places but until I saw just how beat up and bruised this capital city is, I just didn’t understand.

The Lido isn’t just the beating heart of Asuncion, it’s the lighthouse too, it’s the beacon shining out assurances into what appears an extremely uncertain city. It’s a safe harbour. A heavily armed soldier at the door helps ensure this is the case.

I’m extremely far from an expert but from multiple sources the horseshoe shaped diner counter of the Lido has been the location of multiple discussions leading to multiple changes in government and more over the years, as well as several much darker discussions. One book put it bluntly “No talk that’s ever led to anything in Asuncion didn’t start in The Lido”.

I love the place already and will spend as much time as I can here, planted at the counter.

The food is good too.

P.S. I forgot my bag at the Lido counter, with laptop and EVERYTHING of value in it, somehow I didn’t realize it until I’d walked a couple blocks away, I spun around to see the soldier from the Lido sprinting towards me with it in hand.

I did manage to make it to the hotel, I park the truck and head inside around 5am and ask the VERY German looking woman, who speaks pretty much just Spanish-Guarani if there’s any chance I could check in to my room ten hours early.

“No problemo, di nada!” OMG, I could kiss her.

I’m staying in a huge old Euro-regal hotel, it’s old and fancy and interesting…….. and supposedly Hitler is buried in a tomb underneath it.

Not kidding, it’s a thing. I am also the only guest, and the place is huge.

If you read the self-published history of this hotel there is a screamingly conspicuous gap in the story, apparently from 1945 t0 1970 absolutely nothing happened.

Any amount of travel or interest in Paraguay is guaranteed to lead to Nazi’s sooner or later. After WWII, when thousands of Nazi’s escaped to South America they mostly tried to blend in and disappear. Except for the ones in Paraguay, here they took over the entire country and ruled it as a Nazi paradise for far longer than they did in Germany.

Sounds crazy, right, it’s 100% true. The second longest dictatorship in the 20th century, after North Korea, is the Stroessner rule of Paraguay, that the Nazi’s put in place. You just never heard about it because the world chose to look the other way.

My hotel was one of the buildings first confiscated by the Nazi’s, they shot everyone and moved in. Mengele stayed here, as did Stroesser, and Goebbels, all the monsters. They knew Paraguay had no weapons and no friends, no one cared at all.

A 4wd vehicle is pretty mandatory if you’re planning on straying far from Asuncion.

Picking up my rental 4×4 in the airport…

1. Paraguayan roads are famously awful, there’s multiple Youtube docs about this.
2. I haven’t driven a manual transmission in years.
3. It’s 4am, I haven’t slept. I am so tired I am unsteady.
4. I’ve been sick for a week and am far from 100%.
5. It’s a torrential downpour outside.
6. It’s pitch black outside.
7. I’ve spent pretty much zero time ever driving a diesel 4×4.
8. Asuncion has basically no traffic lights and few street lights.
9. I don’t see all that well.
10. Since the transplants I really don’t see all that well at night.

The car rental agent is extremely nice but has left me standing alone, pondering my life choices, in a parking lot, at 4:30am, in a drenching downpour, keys in my hand, after relaying a gigantic list of instructions to me entirely in the local mix of Spanish and Guarani.

I have no idea what I am doing.

While boarding my flight from Bogota, Colombia to Asuncion, Paraguay the conversation went like this (factor in a bit of language barrier as well)

Gate Agent: You have proof of COVID vaccination?

Me: Yes. (I show her)

Gate Agent: You have proof of Yellow Fever vaccination?

Me: Yes. (I show her)

Gate Agent: This is a one way ticket, where is your ticket out of Paraguay?

Me: I don’t have one.

Gate Agent: Well, when are you leaving Paraguay?

Me: I have no idea.

Gate Agent: You need to show me proof on onward travel…

Me: But I don’t have any…

At this point she tells me to stand aside and they board the rest of the flight. Then a conference starts among airline staff. Lots of pointing at me and talking in Spanish.

Gate Agent: We can’t let you board without proof you will leave Paraguay.

Me: Are you certain? I have been planning this trip for a very long time and have never come across any mention anywhere of Paraguay having such a requirement.

Gate Agent: Yes, you absolutely need proof of forward travel.

Me: Does ANYTHING saying I’m leaving Paraguay count?

Gate Agent: Of course.

So now…. with a plane full of people literally waiting… I frantically use my phone to buy a random bus ticket online, for $10, taking me from Asuncion to the Argentine border… that I will never use.

Me: Will this work?

Gate Agent: Of course, now please hurry and board.

The levels of pointless here… I just cannot….

P.S. After landing in Asuncion I asked the border control agent if proof of forward travel is required, he said no, and seemed to have zero idea what I was talking about.

On my way home to pack for the airport I realized I had enough time to grab a quick drink at Huerta, a bar that had been on my list for a long time and that I assumed I wouldn’t get to visit once I got sick.

I’m so incredibly happy I popped in. I was going to just grab a quick drink to cross Huerta off my list and get home to pack. However as soon as I sat down the bartender connected me with the staff member with the best English, Alejandro, and we started discussing cocktails which lead to a lot of other topics.

They showed me multiple local Colombian liquors and how they use them, they poured me taster after taster and gave me samples of the local fruits they use.

It’s absolutely exhilarating to hit a topic you nerd about with new people who are the same.

At once point Alejandro was explaining the passionfruit family and how they use them and he excused himself to grab a missing type of passionfruit. After a few minutes I asked the bartender where he had gone, she smiled and pointed across the street to the market.

Alejandro came back with a bunch more local fruit to try and we discussed cocktail culture in Bogota and in Vancouver, when I said I had just been in Mexico City he vanished again and came back with a different bartender. AND I TOTALLY KNEW THIS BARTENDER! I asked her if I know her, she told me she knew me when I walked in… I AM NOT KIDDING.

Turns out she is the owner of Las Brujas, one of the best bars in Mexico City, I had spent a couple nights there and apparently made an impression. She said she was in Bogota working at Huerta as a bartender exchange with her bar in Mexico City.

EVERYONE’S BRAINS MELTED! The smallest of small worlds.

I hung out with everyone at the bar until it was cutting it close for my flight and said goodbye and asked for the bill. The bill came and the only thing on it was my original cocktail from when I first arrived.

“Customer service” is not even the right term for whatever this interaction was. It was honestly just energetic, nerdy, joy.

My latest working theory for getting so sick is the altitude in Bogota exacerbated whatever knocked me into bed for 3 days. Bogota is between 8500 and 9500 feet up, making it the highest city I’ve been to. In any case I woke up this morning feeling about 75% better and decided to pack as much into my last half day as I could.

Not feels better than realizing you feel better.

I learned when I arrived that Google’s understanding of the high speed bus system in Bogota, the TransMilenio, was pretty much entirely bunk. So I had to trip plan using actually maps and route guides and pens and papers. I’d been using Uber up to now but for a transit nerd Uber really feels like kissing your sister, sure it gets you where you need to be but you just don’t feel quite right about it.

The high speed bus system, in one easy to read layout…. sure

I bused downtown and the walked to a local historic breakfast place for the Colombian version of tamales. Everything was awesome but yet again the latin American concept of customer service was loud and clear. For a Canadian it really does feel like they hope you choke and die on their lovely food.

I wandered aimlessly after breakfast eventually getting back to the TransMilenio bus and riding another hour south to the main favela, as this is where the new gondola transit line is, similar to Mexico City just scaled down quite a bit.

I rode to the very top station and wandered around a very different version of Bogota than I’d seen before. Eventually I got a lemonade (here this seems to mean lime, sugar and coconut water) and sat on a curb for half an hour, just watching the neighborhood rotate. As in Mexico City I felt perfectly safe and unthreatened. Some kids were eyeing me up so I ordered a few more lemonades for them and some chips for us to toss to the street dogs. I cannot express my joy.

I’ve found the people here more outgoing and less hesitant than a lot of people in Mexico, twice during this excursion women came up and started conversations, asking lots of questions, I don’t think this has ever happened to me in Mexico.

One of the women asked if we could share a gondola on the way down, immediately my spidey sense started looking for risk or scam potential but it was pretty clear she was just enjoying talking.

We talked until we got down the cable line and took our separate buses. She gave me a suggestion for lunch so I made my way that direction.

After lunch I started heading back north to where I’m staying to start packing up, I need to be at the airport around 6pm.

UPDATE: I have been informed this is a tamarillo, a member of the nightshade family native to Colombia.

Put up your hand if you are still too sick to get out of bed. (my hand is up)

NOSE – Who knows, I’m too sick to smell. It smells like fruit.

TASTE – Could taste like pumpkin pie for all I can tell, I can’t even breathe. I get notes of guava and papaya and a definite taste of tomato.

DOES IT GO WITH TAJIN – No idea, it’s unheard of in Colombia.

IS IT GOOD – Yup! I’d love to try it again once I can taste again.

I’m getting sicker by the hour so dragging myself out of bed to grab a couple burgers is pretty much all I’m going to accomplish today.

From what I’ve seen so far about 10% of Bogota restaurants are Colombian food, the rest are pretty evenly split among Italian, Mexican and burger places. Burgers are absolutely everywhere here.

For fast food you will always find the Colombian fast food chain “El Corral” in among the KFC and McDonald’s locations, it’s the pride of the nation.

I meant to just grab a burger from El Corral tonight but after I walked in and ordered I looked around and realized I wasn’t actually IN the El Corral, I was instead in the knock-off burger place, “El Burger”, next door. Oops.

I got my imitation burger to go and went next door to also grab the real thing. According to the fates this can mean only one thing…

BOGOTA BURGER SHOWDOWN

CRITERIA	EL BURGER	EL CORRAL	WINNER
BUN	Solid, slightly brioche style	Safeway meets Burger King, meh	EL BURGER
TOPPINGS	Really nice pickles	Awesome fried onions	TIE
BACON	It’s bacon	Interesting, the bacon is sorta shredded, tastes good too	EL CORRAL
CHEESE	Orange, plastic	MOAR orange, MOAR plastic	EL BURGER
PATTY	Not bad at all, nice sauce too	Burger King, dry, really dry	EL BURGER
COST	About half as much as El Corral	About twice as much as El Burger	EL BURGER
OVERALL	Like a Romer’s burger meets a Wendy’s burger, quite good	Honestly just a slightly better tasting, but dry, Whopper	EL BURGER

BOGOTA DRINK REVIEW #1 – COLA & POLA

FUN FACT: I’ve come down with an awful cold and am wasting my Bogota time in bed feeling awful.

NOSE: This smells like beer…. and bubble gum??? Is this alcohol? I picked this up at the grocery store near where I am staying, no clue what this is.

FUN FACT 2: Apparently ‘Cola & Pola’ is a 50/50 mix of beer and “Kola Champagne”.

FUN FACT 3: Apparently “Kola Champagne” is a sort of cream soda with an additional bubble-gum like flavour, no cola.

TASTE: Soooo… this is half beer… half bubble-gum/vanilla soda….

IS IT GOOD: Are you on crack? It’s beer and bubble-gum, it’s literally a joke from the Simpsons. It’s awful.

2/10: Seriously, google “Simpson’s Skittle-Brau”.

After six weeks in Mexican heat the Vancouver-like climate of Bogota feels absolutely wonderful, cool air, cloud cover, grass, trees, it’s heavenly. I wandered pointlessly all day and will do the same tomorrow.