Recorded music, musical instruments, local crafts (indigenous and otherwise) and art­work all make good souvenirs.

Glitzy, air-con shopping malls - imagina­tively called 'shoppings' - are a feature of every self-respecting city and often contain decent music stores. Browsing the many markets and small streetside stalls yields, for better or worse, less predictable results. Street stalls sell bootleg CDs for around US$3, against about US$12 for the official releases in stores.

Brazil 's many varieties of percussion, wind and string instruments make good souvenirs and presents. You can often find inexpensive ones at craft markets as well as in music stores.

For genuine Indian arts and crafts, look in the Artindia stores of Funai (the government Indian agency) and museum gift shops.

Artisans in the northeast produce a rich assortment of artistic items. Salvador and nearby Cachoeira are notable for their rough-hewn wood sculptures. Ceara specializes in fine lace. The interior of Per­nambuco, in particular Caruaru , is famous for wildly imaginative ceramic figurines.

Candomble stores are a good source of curios, ranging from magical incense guaranteed to increase sexual allure, wis­dom and health, to amulets and ceramic figurines of Afro-Brazilian gods.