My alarm rang. I grabbed my phone, awake enough to silence it and understand whatever email landed in my mailbox during the night.

“Warning, transportation cancelled!”

The fuck?

“Due to severe winter weather… blah blah blah, school buses…”

Oh. Right. Mark’s school. The school board’s yellow buses were cancelled, not my own transportation. LATAM was flying just fine, and my plane was still scheduled on time.

Phew.

I opened the curtains just to double-check. It was stormy, but São Paulo wasn’t blanketed in snow. Lucky me.

I hurried to finish packing. I was flying from Congonhas, but according to Google Maps, it could take up to an hour to drive the 22 km to the “downtown” airport. No one will be shocked to hear that traffic can be bad in a city as big as São Paulo.

Goodbye, southern Brazil. Hello, my beloved Nordeste. So long German and Japanese influences, cooler nights, tons of dairy products, and rock music. Brazil’s huge northeast region is a different world, with distinct cultures.

Carnival is coming up, and I had to go somewhere. Hotspots where the entire city parties—think Rio, Salvador, or Recife—were not an option this year. Too expensive, too overwhelming for me alone, although I did check Salvador Airbnbs for longer than I care to admit. One day. One day…

I could have spent Carnival in São Paulo, like I did in 2020, when shockingly Brazil still had zero COVID cases and then discovered a bunch right after Carnival ended. The parties were amazing, but it was cold and rainy. That’s the thing with São Paulo. It’s the best city in the world as long as it doesn’t rain all day.

I looked into smaller towns, but I risked missing Carnival altogether.

So I looked up.

Hey. Hi, Fortaleza.

I stayed in Fortaleza in 2023 and left with mixed feelings. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Maybe it was time to give it another chance. Plus, Fortaleza was big enough to have some Carnival energy without the chaos of Rio or Salvador.

A cheap flight from São Paulo and a very affordable Airbnb, especially for Carnival, sealed the deal.

And there I was, just a month after leaving São Paulo for the first time, already leaving again.
Poor São Paulo. The faithful friend I always abandon for other adventures.

I missed the nerve-wracking takeoff at Congonhas. I spent the entire three-and-a-half-hour flight catching up on sleep after pré-Carnaval. I woke up as we approached Fortaleza and watched the city slowly come into focus. It was bigger than I remembered.

We landed at 5:30 p.m., right at sunset, the classic Nordeste hour. Life keeps going afterward anyway. It’s still hot and humid, just slightly more bearable after dark.

Suddenly, everything felt urgent. I had to figure out how to get to the Airbnb, how to get into the building using a combination of codes, tags, and keypads, where to find food, and most importantly, where to get a cup of coffee.

Damn. I don’t remember anything about Fortaleza, do I?

Never mind. I’ll start from scratch.

Maybe it’s better that way.