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Salvador in the state of Bahia is a favourite tourist destination for Brazilians but its charms have yet to gain full recognition abroad. Cariocas (natives of Rio de Janeiro), who most foreigners would think already live in an exotic city, come to Salvador to find the even more exotic. This includes African-derived cuisine and music played for free every night in the historic and much restored centre of Pelourinho. Pelourinho was dilapidated until the state government launched a recovery programme in 1992. Salvador's beaches, which are as impressive as Rio's, seem to stretch for ever and carnivals in Salvador are longer and livelier than those in Rio.
But migration to the big cities such as Salvador from the arid middle of the state - home to about 5 million people - has brought the usual social problems. In Rio de Janeiro the favelas (slums) are perched on adjacent hillsides, in Salvador they sweep right down into the city as if they were any other kind of housing estate, which given time and investment no doubt they could be.