Today I became a business owner in Iquitos, La Comida de Rita. Rita, Camilla and I struck out early today to start our new business venture. They knew what they were doing, I was just tagging along and being the banker. As we ventured into the market in Belen I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of this amazing place: the people, the sounds, the smells, the circus of the absurd. Everyone has a purpose, a process, a procedure, organized chaos. We started with buying the food we would need, after much searching we finally found what they were looking for, palm fruit. I thought we were looking for potatoes and kept wondering why we kept passing stacks of potatoes. When we finally found the palm fruit, I had to ask what the heck it was, I had never seen it before. We picked up some spices, eggs and concentrated chicha morada (purple corn drink) and it was off to get the necessary equipment, plates, glasses and other necessary miscellaneous items. The last thing was a huge bag of coal, heavier than I wanted to deal with but we got it all loaded in a motorcar and headed to Rita’s house. Within two hours we had picked up everything we needed to start a new street café ala Rita.
Food for the café S/30
Necessary equipment S/75
Large bag of coal S/30
Total cost of our new business venture S/135 or $50
Experiencing the process and watching a new entrepreneur dream PRICELESS