Brazil

After eighteen months of barely leaving Massachusetts, I flew Delta to São Paulo and then on to Rio de Janeiro. The Rio Othon Palace on Copacabana Beach. COVID tests and vaccination cards and all the friction of early post-pandemic travel, but I was out.

Rio was everything — Sugarloaf, Christ the Redeemer, Ipanema, the favelas on the hillsides, the chaos of Carnival preparations even in August. Copacabana at sunset was worth the entire trip.

Then to Campinas and Belo Horizonte before flying back through São Paulo. Nine days, three cities, and the first real proof that the world was opening back up. After the Hong Kong shutdown and then COVID, Brazil felt like breathing again.