Coconuts in front of Mercado Modelo. Image: Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Between the songs, the Victoria’s Secret models and the movies, one would think Brazil is a non-stop music video of bronze, bikini-clad beauties complete with cameos from Pharrell and Snoop. Of course, Brazil is so much more than beautiful people and beaches — or bullet-riddled favelas run by lookalikes of the little dude from City of God.

Home to the biggest population of Africans outside of Africa, Brazil is positively opulent with history, art, music and more with much of the magic concentrated in the northeastern state of Bahia where 80 percent of the population is of African descent. We’ve put together a need to know/need to go guide for your next trip.

If you’ve visited Bahia already, make sure to chime in on our Facebook page with the destinations we missed!