On our way up to the Chapadas, we payed a short visit to Brazil’s capital city - Brasilia. This artificially created city looks like a bird from the sky, where the city centre sits in the middle with residential blocks on the wings. A modernist masterpiece, it was designed by Oscar Niemayer (architecture) and Burle Marx (landscaping). The order was a huge contrast to Rio’s disorder. Architecture is really interesting, we loved the metropolitan cathedral (glass roofing creates a unique atmosphere in the church), the congress (city’s dominant), the ministry’s buildings (for their exterior coating) and the justice palace (with waterfalls!!). We could not help it, but the residential blocks looked like hotel resorts (palms, paved footpaths through gardens, which were well maintained) - hope the residents felt like that too.
How was it?
We booked an Airbnb. That turned out to be the best idea because Christina and her daughter Karina were our hosts. We made our first Tapioca for lunch (2 kinds - one with cheese, the other with bananas) and it was a success! We spent the day walking and of course it was raining. So we went to the shopping mall to sort out our Brazilian SIM card - that was really fun (more about it on our Facebook page). But the consequent visit to the art gallery showcasing computer art was way better! When it started raining, we got our first açai - delicious kinda ice cream with nuts, bananas and oats for toppings… 
We didn’t know our way back and it was heavily raining.. So we asked a pretty girl, she told us which bus to take and let us share her umbrella :) Later, we went to the local supermarket to taste free fruit samples and to buy more Tapioca.
Tapioca night
When we got back to our b’n’b, we were once again warmly greeted by Christine. She was probably divorced and in her 50ties, we could see she was happy to host two boys with whom she could practice English. There was also a grandpa living with them in the house and he insisted on showing us the perks of living in a rather small flat. Whether we were requested to watch TV with broken colours, enjoy the superb view on other concrete social housing or to admire his driver’s licence, it was great! We started making Tapiocas, but Christine offered us some help and she ended cooking dinner for us. We made salad with fresh tomatoes and ricotta cheese. The tapiocas from Christine were amazing - she put some butter and ham&cheese and it was really tasty. We were fully satisfied and shortly after fell asleep.
Morning struggle
We woke up. A bit late. In a hurry, Christine drove us to the metro - mucho obrigado! There subway is still in construction and half of the stops are yet to be opened. We got to the bus station at shopping (15min away from the shopping centre) quarter to 10am. The bus was leaving at 10. At the station, there were about 20 places where to buy tickets from - of course we had no idea which company was going to Alto Paraiso. 10 before 10, we found out at the information desk which company it was. But they had an electronic queuing system and our turn was going to be after the bus would have left. Jumping the queue, Kuba talked to the lady (Spanish-Portugese), she talked to someone on the radio (Portugese) and slowly sold us the tickets (Portugese). Running, we made it to the bus and our journey without breakfast and water was set to begin!
