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Santa Marta: City of Entrepreneurs

“Aquacate, Aquacate, Aquacate!” the man shouts whilst the midday sun turns the back of my neck a crisp tanned red as I make my way down Carrera Quinta in the centre of Santa Marta. “Cinturones y Gorras” another lady shouts. “Arepas de pollo!” another. This street is full of people selling their wares. From homemade lollipops of coroso and guanabana to socks, selfie sticks and everything in-between “A la orden” they chorus. Your welcome it means, and if you could sum up Santa Marta in one word, this might be it. Another might be entrepreneurial.

Nearly everyone I know in Santa Marta is an entrepreneur. Quinta is full of them. On every corner there is a lemonade stall or an arepa man. The hostel owners, restaurateurs, tour guides, sombrero sellers, fishermen and Rolo runaways. Even the guys who collect the cans off the street to sell as scrap metal are entrepreneurs. From Daabon to the Coco Loco guy. Santa Marta is a city of entrepreneurs.

I’m starting to get used to the heat and noise now. It’s my third year living here. Today I am navigating the Quinta looking for furniture and fabric for my new joint-business, a restaurant called; A Deriva, and a bar called; Taste.

Jerome, one of my partners and head chef of A Deriva and I are looking for something cool and classic to fill the lounge bar upstairs, so we head to see Jairo on Calle 12. His house is an Aladdin’s cave, jammed to the rafters with old antiqueno furniture and artefacts. Classic “original” signed photos of Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill, 1920’s gas lamps and old gramophones clutter up the place. He’s been here for 25 years and runs his businesses with his son Mono, who restores all the abandoned furniture to their former glory.

Jairo and Mono might not be what you think of as traditional entrepreneurs, nor any of the small business I just described on Carrera Quinta but the word entrepreneur means: “A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit”. And to some extent, this is what everyone is doing here.

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I ask Johann Díaz, one of the owners of Playa el Ritmo beach bar and hostel what made him choose Santa Marta to build his first business?

“The nature of Colombia has been changing a lot, especially in terms of safety and tourism. Santa Marta has a lot of tourist potential. Additionally, the mentality of the people here is quite open and there is a big influence of foreign people living in Santa Marta and this helps, especially in terms of being a stimulus [for new things]. That is why in Santa Marta you will see several types of businesses that at first glance you will doubt if they will work or not, but they are trying new things. It is like a kind of entrepreneurial laboratory”.

“It’s like doing business with training wheels” Evan Dore from Brisa Loca/Tranquila and the newly opened 5-star hotel Cayena, located on the pristine beaches to the side of Tayrona Park tells me.

“It’s the real South America. Here there are venders on the street with their donkeys screaming pescado, aquacate! You don’t need a license to do that. Back home everything is much more complicated.”

So what does it take to succeed in business in Santa Marta? I ask Paola Bifi; owner of independent boutique fashion shop Marea on Calle 17 en el Centro Histórico. She smiles and says: “Well, the first thing you need is patience. Santa Marta in a process of growing up, it’s in the process of changing. But I believe in it, you just have to be patient.”

I ponder these words the night after receiving the keys to our new locale, just off Parque de los Novios as my girlfriend and I enjoy the remnants of Bruchettas de Anchoa and Estofado de Cordero in Ouzo with our new partners, contemplating our future menu. Will A Deriva Taste success? Only time will tell.

A young boy approaches us to play with our puppy. His name is Juan Felipe, he is 10 years old. After letting Akira chew on his arm for bit he asks me if I want to buy a lollipop. I don’t. But I tell him next time I will buy one for his new friend. “Erés muy linda” he sqeaks at Akira as he smiles and skips away. A future empresario in the making.


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