Clearly the social ladder is for some reason polarized with the magnetic forces of the Earth.  The south is not smiled on by the gods of money the same way the north is.  It's this way with the earth as a whole and many microcosms that exist within it.  The southern hemisphere is cursed with infinite poverty while the northern houses every global powerhouse that exists today or existed in the past.  It's this way in the smaller setting of the United States.  The southern states house the poor and the illiterate.  It's equal here on the Island of Santa Catarina.  The Nothern part of the island holds the elite while the south has much more poverty.  In the face of this poverty, however, there is amazing natural beauty.  Places roads don't go and places where it doesn't matter if you have money.  Lagoinha do leste is one of these places.  Around thirty minutes outside of the city proper, if you know where you going, you can find a trail that goes up and over the mountain and ends in a valley with a little lake, a beach and an old man that lives off the land.  
This trail is not supposed to be kept a secret but it's a touch hard to find, but, I'll give you directions.  Take the road that goes to the south of the island.  If the road turns into a beach that is full of fisherman and their boats and you hardly noticed road ending, you've going a bit too far.  At the end of this road there is also a restaurant that is wallpapered in it's customers messages.  Each person that eats there writes a note on a scrap of 4 by 5 inch paper and posts it on the wall.  The effect looks sort of like an inside out white Christmas tree.  About 5 blocks before the beach this is a road that looks like any other servidao but it's not.  About half way up is the entrance of the trail to the lagoinha.  It's marked but the sign is easy not to pay attention too.  They claim that it takes an hour from one side to the other but I didn't time it so we'll have to take their word for it.  It's strange how the trail up the mountain is so drastically different from the trail down.  On the way up the jungle is thick.  It's dark and damp, and the irregular rocks underfoot are slippery and covered in moss.  There is often water running down in a trench down the middle or off to either side.  The rain water has eroded a miniature stream in the bright red clay  and it weaves it's way through the rocks.  At the top the sky opens up and your exposed to the elements.  It's a feeling like your just waking up or walking out of the house for the first time on a sunny day.  There is an observation deck that straddles the peak of the hill.  From it you can see both the beach with the inside out Christmas tree restaurant and on the other side the little lake and the beach in a cove.  The decent is far different than the climb.  It's dry.  The ground is dusty and the rocks are big and long, like giant stale baggets.  The plant life is more willing to let you see the sky and every so often opens up entirely to let you see the beauty your about to immerse yourself in.  And even if you can't see your destination all the time, you can hear it.  It sounds a little bit like beautiful TV static.  Right at the end of the trail where the trees stop and the beach starts, there is rock shaped perfectly for sitting.  Mother nature new her explorers would be tired.  
The beach is beautiful.  The sand is as fine as table salt and the high tide line is littered with shinny purple oyster shells and sand dollars.  The waves are big.  The surfers would load themselves in the curl of the waves and either the house of cards would come crashing down on them or the trigger would release the hammer and shoot them out once again.  A game of Russian roulette that depends some on skill.  
Thirty years ago a man retired and built his house just off the beach.  The government stepped in a closed the place to further building and it seems they own his house too in a way.  It's a place of community.  The man welcomes any visitor that comes to him.  In fact, his back yard which has a canopy of branches but remains fairly open is a small village of tents belonging to campers.  From far a way the place is hidden in the trees but is marked by a tall flagpole that flies the Brazilian flag and the state of Santa Catarina's flag right beneath.  The short trail leading from the beach to his house is lined with clothes lines with clothes swaying in the breeze.  The smell of burning wood and cooking fish is present but not overwhelming.  We enter and are greeted by "Boa Tarde."  There are several people sitting and standing around in the sandy yard.  There are fishing nets hanging from the tree branches over head.  The house is made out of sticks and logs and things but it is sturdy.  It seems strong and well built.  The cooking is all done with wood.  I walked around in circles for a few moments a touch dizzy with awe.  Then a barrage of offers were sent my way.  Fish.Crab.Drink.  I accepted it all.  It's rude not to after all.  At first I felt like I was intruding but I quickly felt at home.  The fish was good.  Salty and pan fried in oil.  Warm and tactilely delicious.  I threw the bones in the fire under the frying pan like the told me too.  I told them they had to teach me how to eat the crab cause I'd never done it.  Apparently the orange bugger looking stuff is good eating, although it was so small I could hardly taste it.  Eating crab is a hair too much work for me.  I washed it all down with a cachaca based drink the old man's nephew liked to call cuba.  The we started to talk he and I.  He asked me where I was from and the conversation didn't turn directly to Mr. Bush but it meandered its way there.  "Every country has it's Good and it's Bad.  Brazil, The US every country does."  We covered war and peace, rich and poor and voting.  In Brazil it's illegal not to vote.  He claimed that if it wasn't illegal not to, no one would.  Only the 10% that are rich would vote.  He said he'd never vote if it wasn't for that law.  He said it was useless to vote anyway because no candidate does what they claim they will do anyway.  He was impressed that in the US 50% voted and it was totally voluntary.  Every time he talked about the bus station where he worked he would make a gesture putting his hand in his pocket.  I think this meant that was how he got his money.  Then he smiled and said, "Maybe I won't see it but my children's kids will see Brazil sell the Amazon to the US."  I asked him why he was smiling as if it was a good thing.  And He replied, "I smile because I'm certain of it.  It's not good, but it will happen."  And that was all he had to say about that.  He was done talking and he wanted to feed me more again.  I said I was alright with food and too much liquor would not do good things on the way back up the trail.  
I then went to find Marcia.  She was talking with the old man who owned the house, the uncle of Mr. Certain.  The man is 70 years old and he looks it but he remains will every faculty that a teenager has but he keeps the benefit of experience.  He had been laying in his hammock but he moved to a bench against an open wall made of branches and rope.  He is a German man with a very German name.  I couldn't understand him very well but I listen intently to what he had to say.  After some time had passed I asked him if I could take his picture he said sure right away and equally fast got up to show me how he lived.  He wanted me to know how he lived before I took his photograph.  I followed him in to his house, under the hammock and through a door.  There were four bunks.  He pointed to the one that was his and said the others were for visitors.  He showed me how is mosquito net worked.  He then got out an old tattered envelope that was full of all the articles in the newspaper that mentioned his name.  The most recent was from January 31, 2005.  There were pictures posted of his daughter in London and his wife who remains a mystery to me.  My guess is that she has passed away.  Pictures of the boat house he has closer to downtown that he goes to sometimes to fish, were pretty cool.  He kept repeating, "This is how I live, This is all I need."  He showed me his gun that he's never used but he likes to be safe with it around.  He showed me his food.  It was on the sort of wood stove being kept warm.  He poked at the embers a little to liven them up.  He showed me his rice and his beans and his meat.  He showed me his dried beef hanging from the roof.  He claimed it'd keep 2 months like that.  Lots of salt.  I didn't want to interrupt him but I needed some photos soon or I feared losing a chance at all.  I snapped some off and then he showed us his back yard full of tents.  He pointed to the one that was his that he was lending out at the moment.  He talked about how the kids got drunk and some times smoked some Mary J.  That put a little smile on his face and that, put one on mine as well.  He went into the brush to find the wigged chicken.  He chased them out to show us.  It was a little strange looking.  A Chicken with an afro-puff.  It's "wig" would bob as he walked always thrusting his head forward first to test air.  They made their way back into obscurity but the quick glimpse was interesting and kind of them and the old German.  We walked back to the house and thanked the man for everything and turned down another offer for food although it looked good.  We passed by Mr. Certain and his colleagues and I thanked them for talking to me and for the food and beverage and said good bye.  
The old man had told us about another house that was nearby.  And we attempted to find it.  It was on the other side of the lake and through some trails.  We give the skim directions a shot.  The trail went through the water of the lake and then back onto somewhat solid ground.  We found the Horse, that belonged to the couple that lived in the house, tied up and eating his fill on the nearby grass.  Eventually we found the house after several lucky guess of which trail to take.  The entire house was made of old 5 liter glass wine jugs and mortar.  The trees were ringed as well in old glass liquor bottles and the whole place had a very candy land feel about it, something out of a fairytale.  It was very romantic.  Almost as romantic as the story that came with the house.  A couple had built the house to live in.  Things went well until the woman left the man and the house.  He killed himself from grief and left the house abandoned…Until about a year ago.  Another couple moved in there and has been living there ever since.  I wish them well, and better luck than the last one had.  A maze of trials found our way out, passed sleeping campers in tents and other tents whose owners were no doubt surfing.  We stopped at mother nature's bench for a moment and admired the ocean, before embarking on the hike back to civilization, or quase civilization, should I say, as we were on the southern part of the island.