Well, we have an instrument called Cavaquinho, that's similar to the ukelele, I think. I found this online store http://www.salaomusical.com/en/ but you may want to do a bit more research.

As you can see in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavaquinho It resembles the ukulele since it was its "ancestor". It is really popular in fado music ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fado ): a musical genre that portrays sadness/loss/nostalgia. There's actually a word that means all that and it's not translatable: Saudade ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudade ). This genre is not as popular as all the Hawaiian songs that have Ukuleles, but is rather known by every portuguese individual. The fact that the tone of Fado is mournful by default causes it to be a sad genre to listen to, although some singers/groups have modernised it considerably. You can check out Deolinda ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxv9s3PTIzY ) for an example of old meets new and A Naifa ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCzmKUK5MpM ) for an exemple of genre mashup (fado and electronic). There are actually a lot of variations on modern fado music. As for the classical ones I'd suggest some Amália Rodrigues ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6RVgZLzDjU this is a personal favourite) As for buying one from Portugal, I'd say it's not a good idea because nowadays "Ukulele" means "Ukulele" and not "Cavaquinho", its original form. If you want something different that's genuinely portuguese I would suggest a Portuguese Guitar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_guitar You could check if there's an import company in the US since it can get pretty expensive and troublesome to ship overseas. Hope It helped, have a good week. Claudio