In the Black...Almost.

In an attempt to fill my time (of which I have plenty) and in the interest of my budget, I spent the last week scheming up business plans. After careful consideration and observation I decided that there was a hole in the market, and it was shaped like a brownie. The baked goods in South America as a whole are pretty disappointing, and I figured this was a service that I could offer the tourism industry of Taganga. I looked up a recipe and went into town to get the required ingredients. Made my first batch of brownies from scratch (and realized just HOW much butter goes into those things...and why they are so delicious) and spent 10 minutes trying to sell them on the street. It only took me about 3 of those minutes to remember that I absolutely positively hate selling things. Flashbacks to selling entertainment books in gradeschool gave me the chills. Hopes crushed, I went back home and put the brownies in tupperware. I then made a loop of the village, seeking out the few friends I had made at a scattering of hostels around town. I ended up giving most of them away to randoms sitting around their hostels, and got rave feedback. Hopes revived, I came up with an alternate business plan. So I don´t like sales. That doesn´t cut out my chances entirely, I just needed to find someone to do the dirty work for me. So I made a deal with one of the local juice stand ladies. I would make the brownies and deliver them to the stand in the morning. For every one that sold for 2500 ($1.10), the juice stand lady would get 500. I would return to pick up the money and whatever didn´t sell at the end of the day

Day 1: Made a batch of 12 brownies. By the end of the day, 7 had sold from the juice stand. I only needed to sell 3 to break even on the costs of production, so things were already looking good. But, it was 9pm and I still had 5 brownies to sell. Undeterred from my goal of selling all of them, I set myself up outside the only bar in town (it was Saturday night) with a sign. It took an hour, but I sold the remaining 5. Sucess! I had made enough money to cover all of my expenses for the day, as well as an extra $.65. I´m RICH! ...sort of.

Day 2: Repeat, but with a different juice stand, this one has a better location on the beach. End of the day: disaster. I had borrowed one of my landlord´s plates, and the juice stand had closed a bit early so when I went to retrieve it that night the lady had already cleaned up and taken it home. They were absolutely furious about this, assuming the plate was stolen. After getting screamed at (in spanish, it was good practice, at least), I spent two hours asking just about every person in town where the juice lady lived. I finally recruited the help of an elderly man who walked literally across the whole town with me, finally narrowing in on her neighborhood, street, then house (this took about an hour). I finally found her, "rescued" the plate (since there are NO OTHER green plastic plates in Colombia, even if it had been stolen), and gave the remaining brownies to the old man for his troubles. I returned home to further scolding in spanish. Needless to say, things are a bit weird around the house now. They have calmed down by now, obviously, but I will never be comfortable being there again. So, after a week and a half of laying on the beach, I think it´s time to move on. Pack the bag and get back on the road.