ELEVEN AIRPORTS IN FIVE WEEKS

From MVD (Montevideo, Uruguay) to GIG ( Rio de Janeiro) from there to SSA (Salvador de Bahia) and on to BEL (Belem). After traveling by boat for a few days from STM (Santarem) to MAO (Manaus), from where we flew via GRU (Sao Paulo, Guarulhos) to IGU (Foz do Iguacu). Then I traveled a part by bus. From FLN (Florianopolis) to CGH (Sao Paulo, Congonhas) and on from GRU (Sao Paulo, Guarulhos) to LIM (Lima, Peru)
Most of the traveling on my trip through South America I have done by bus. And sometimes they were rather long bus rides. But Brazil is a huge country and flights are not much more expensive (and sometimes even cheaper) than buses. And deciding between a two hour flight and a 40-hour bus ride for the same price is quite easy. Besides that, Bine only had four weeks in Brazil and we didn't want to spent half of that time in buses.
Almost all of the flights left after midnight and we usually got to the airport by bus. Often we got to the airport around 9pm (we took local buses to the airport and these usually didn't run late at night) and had to wait for a while. Then arriving after a one or two hour flight early in the morning at the next place. We didn't want to spend lots of money for taxi and a few hours of sleep in a hostel and normally stayed at the airport. That meant looking for a quiet spot, preferable with seats without armrests for a few hours of sleep or at least rest before taking the bus to the city center / hostel in the morning. For everyone intending to spend a night at an airport sleepinginairports.net is a great website.

Most airports looked the same and the time there was quite uneventful. But a few experiences I will remember:

When we got to the Salvador airport to catch our flight to Belem, our first stop was the washroom. We hadn't noticed that our packs got really dirty on the local bus and after carrying the backpacks, our shirts where dirty too. Therefore we spent some time washing our t-shirts in the airport bathroom.

In Santarem, a very small airport with maybe twenty flights a day, we were asked by an airport employee, if everything was ok and if we need anything. That's service.
In Florianopolis I was waiting longer in line for the check-in than the flight took to Sao Paulo, which was less than an hour.
At Sao Paulos GRU airport, on my way to Lima, I had to wait a lot. First check-in line, then security check, then migration. It was good that I was at the airport three hours before departure, since I needed almost all that time to get to the gate.