Sorry for the lack of information. I fell sick, but more about that after today’s post.

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We docked in Salvador at 1:00pm and were leaving later that night, so that did not leave much time. However, one of the excursions were different that the normal highlights – “Percussion Workshop”. Ok, I’ll bite.

Every region of Brazil has their own unique twists with carnival. Here they use drums – lots and lots of drums. Where Rio has a dedicated stadium where teams compete with fancy floats, Salvador has mobile stages/trailers that move along the streets. Each trailer has a singer and many, Many, MANY drums.

Our guide explained this as our small bus traveled up the cliff (the town actually has an outdoor elevator for this) to Pelourinho, which is the old town. I don’t know why I’m still surprised that there even are “old towns” in the port cities we are visiting. But here, it’s really old. Salvador was the first “new world” capital.

We first stopped at their carnival museum. While nicer that the one we visited in Uruguay (we had A/C!), the glass enclosures and “cool” lighting made taking pictures difficult while in a crowd. The costumes are simpler that in Rio, and many have a horned aspect.

Now it was time to drum. We walked on cobblestones road thru town, dodging traveling drummers (carnival only ended a few days ago) and arrived a what looked like a common row house that had an LP record “store” (think boxes of LPs in someone’s living room). However, walk downstairs and enter the back area, where there is a tin-roof open shed and many drums.

My first sight was the rabbit hutch right there, only one meter away from the drums. They must be hard of hearing now.

Below is just a bunch of pictures of the drums. We “learned” what are, to my uneducated ears: 3, 4 and 5-count drumbeats used for different type of dances. Noone is now prepared to join a band, but it was a fun change of pace.

A different kind of trip for drive-by cruise passengers. Our next stop is Recife.

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So, about getting sick…

Seems I picked up a cold during the Rio carnival event. 24-hours after getting home I felt a scratch in my thought, but assumed is was from singer and yelling (for me, the same thing) during the parades. Only a few hours later I felt it move up my head and knew I was doomed. The ship medical personnel confirmed I did not catch COVID by shoving swabs out the back of my skull. I was then given aspirin and told to tough it out.

My temperature was almost 104 degF (40 degC). I had an annoying headache for almost four days and sweat thru my sheets every day. I stayed in my cabin and managed to eat at least once per day, mostly just fruit. I finally felt better yesterday and my headache broke last night.

I haven’t had a cold like that in decades. Let’s keep it that way.