At 9 a.m., the entire Florianópolis International Airport smells of freshly baked pão de queijo—Brazilians are serious about both breakfast and their beloved cheesy bites. I usually love the smell but I feel dizzy, it’s early and I haven’t slept enough again. Plus, I’m sad we’re leaving the island, under a clear blue sky to boot.

This must be a mistake. Why aren’t we at the beach? Or still asleep, dreaming of going to the beach?

I walk to the duty-free shop and spray Chance to neutralize the cheesy smell floating in the air. I can’t afford Chanel perfume but it’s my favourite airport tester.

“Wanna check Mark’s bag at the gate? We can do it for free; it’s a full flight, apparently.”

“Nah, I have my sweater in it. Oh, and the plane blankets. His tablet too.”

I laugh. “Oh well, who am I to give you packing advice, anyway? I have a pack of linguine and broccoli in my carry-on backpack!”

Raw broccoli, I must add.

Please, don’t call the nearest asylum. It makes sense, I swear. Just let me explain.

Goodbye, Florianópolis

At one point, we had to leave Floripa. That point was Friday.

Leaving Florianópolis is like dragging yourself out of your warm bed on a cold winter morning. It’s going to be okay but it’s uncomfortable. The thing is, Florianópolis isn’t just a lovely place, it’s also a very liveable city. Take a place like Paraty or the Morro de São Paulo—there are picturesque towns and amazing stops to explore but it’s very, very hard to picture yourself moving here unless you’re willing to embrace a completely different life and possibly change your entire personality (I know I get very tired of walking the same three streets).

“I used to be very sad to leave Floripa until one day, I moved there!” our Airbnb host texted back when I told her that yes, we had enjoyed the house, and I was sad to leave.

“You’re not helping,” I muttered.

Not only was I sad to leave but there were challenges ahead.

We had to leave at 8:30, give the keys back to the host, drive to the airport, return the car and take the 12 p.m. flight to Campinhas. If you’ve never heard of Campinhas, that’s normal—this São Paulo suburb is the main hub used by Azul. Then we had another flight at 5:35 p.m. arriving at 7:10 p.m. in Brasília.

Travellers love exploring new cities—and Brasília is a new one for us. But travellers also hate arriving late in a new city. Landing at 7:10 p.m. meant we would be at the Airbnb around 8 p.m. in the best-case scenario—and we still had to figure out our new place, take a shower, get some food, etc.  

Late arrivals are a make-or-break situation.

Hence the broccoli.

Not that I typically munch on broccoli when we arrive late, it’s just that I had some leftovers in the fridge. We pretty much grabbed whatever we had that could be used for a late-night meal if everything was closed or if we were delayed.

Feng and I spent the evening packing, wondering what to take with us, wondering where to stash miscellaneous items we normally don’t travel with (again, broccoli, but hey, I carried a sandwicheira in my backpack for weeks last year, so I can be resourceful), and reminiscing about our many late arrivals.

“Remember the first time in Salvador?”

“And the first time in Floripa?”

And I didn’t sleep much because, as usual, packing took forever. Packing to fly is annoying, especially because it includes taping lids to make sure shampoo, etc. doesn’t leak. Plus, it was our first serious packing job since São Paulo because we had a car in Floripa, so we just dumped anything that didn’t fit in it when going from town to town.

Florianópolis to Campinhas, and the broken door

Fast forward to the airport smelling of pão de queijo.

“Pretty smooth so far,” Feng said once we got our Azul boarding passes.

Mark was sulking for reasons only known to himself; I was half asleep but yeah, pretty smooth so far. The Airbnb host was on time to pick up the key, the car rental was returned “tudo bom,” and we didn’t even queue to get the boarding passes.

I planned to board the plane and sleep for… well, only 75 minutes, the time it takes to fly to Campinhas, but that was already a start.

And so we boarded and I fell asleep. Except when I woke up an hour later, I couldn’t help noticing we definitely weren’t flying. I didn’t have a window seat but I knew we weren’t moving.

“How come we didn’t take off?”

Feng shrugged.

“Passengers to Belo Horizonte, Salvador,…” The flight attendants listed half of Brazil. Geography quiz to kill some time before take off? No, she followed up with the important part: “Please take your bag and leave the plane, you’ve been rebooked to a direct flight.”

Half of the plane left going to half of Brazil got up and left to take planes that were presumably taking off for real.

“Brasília?” I asked.

“Nah, you stay on board. We’re just late.”

“Goiânia?” someone asked behind me.

“Stay on board.”

A few cities were punished.

The door was fixed—ah, that was the problem!—, the now pretty empty plane eventually took off around 1:30 p.m. and we landed in Campinhas with time to spare.

I know Campinhas. I transferred there once on the way to Buenos Aires when the pandemic was officially becoming a pandemic. I remember I wanted to buy Havaianas at the airport, which is how I found out that Campinhas is possibly the only Brazilian airport without a Havaianas store—and that, in fact, the airport was mostly empty.

I’m laughing now, considering just a couple of weeks later all airports worldwide were actually empty. I accidentally got a lockdown preview.

Campinhas was still very boring. We hung out outside, Mark ate a slice of pizza and I had a coffee, and then we went through security again. Mark was selected for a random check but since he was too young, I had to stand there while a wand was being hovered all over me. Fortunately, the magic wand was trained to detect explosives, not broccoli.

Brasília, the extreme cooking edition

The flight to Brasília was on time. We made it to the Airbnb around 8:30.

The first thing we discovered in the apartment was that the flush was broken. The second was that there were definitely no supermarkets around.

“Quick, what do we do?”

“Let’s go to the mall. It’s already close to 9 p.m.”

We could see the mall from the apartment building but finding our way to it was another story. Turned out it involved crossing a few streets and taking a steep flight of stairs to the parking lot.

“Okay, you guys eat, I’m going to the Carrefour. It’s supposed to be open 24/7.”

It’s not just food we need—water as well, since tap water isn’t drinkable in Brazil. Plus I wanted something to cook with the fucking broccoli.

And so I went, following Google Maps, to the nearest Carrefour, a 30-minute walk along the freeway. Somehow, I found it—along with the basics I needed.

Then I discovered the stove.

Cooking in Brasília, extreme edition.

Welcome to the capital of Brazil!