If you live in Escazú, you have surely seen Don Julio. For 20 years, it has been parking with a large blue pickup in front of Plaza San Rafael, 6 days a week, to offer fresh fruit to everyone who passes by on its way. But this fruit grower who receives his customers with a smile from side to side, reflecting happiness and pride, had to travel a journey full of ups and downs to find what today he finally enjoys: work tranquility.
At the age of 12, his father took him for the first time to the wholesale market and from there on he began his career as a merchant. His days did not have time to focus on studies or anything else than helping his father sell fruits in the market. However, it would not take long to fill with courage and seek independence and in a matter of years, with desire and a great bit of creativity, he took its first steps in his own fruit business.
With the help of a skateboard, reinforced with a wooden board and a rope to pull it, don Julio began to market 2 boxes of jocotes in San José downtown, this way he worked for 2 years and after saving enough he bought his first car, a Toyota 1000 of the 79 and then managed to transport and sell 7 or 8 jocotes boxes a day.
At first glance you could see that Don Julio’s business was looking pretty good, but the rocks that complicated his way existed and were getting worst. Inspectors, persecutions, seizures of merchandise and more, don Julio had to deal with this list of problems daily in San José, since they did not gave him permits to market, at the time he was forced to look for another sector to sell his products.
He tried with Heredia and Alajuela, but he was still denied the sale permits. It was then when he resorted to look for opportunities in the Great Metropolitan Area and how he arrived at a place called ‘Escazú’.
It did not take long for Don Julio to meet up with those rocks in the western part of the country. Once again, the inspectors of the municipality wanted to put him to walk, but for the first time they listened to the requests for labor help and agreed to give this fruit seller a job opportunity. Finally, he was approved for sale permits in 99 and since then Escazú became his job security and Don Julio became an iconic figure in the area.
Nowadays, the good references of their products reach the coast. People from Limón, Guanacaste, Heredia, Cartago and others, come looking for the fruit seller with a modern blue Pickup, full of quality merchandise.
n this way the community of Escazú welcomed this fruit vendor, so that he would find the success and job stability that he yearned for years. Since then, don Julio has risen up with enthusiasm because he knows that he will go to a place where he will find the opportunities he needs to survive.
