by Carol Vlassoff
(en Español)

With his grey blue eyes, fair skin and closely cropped silvery hair, Luis Bolaños may not look like a typical Tico. But he’s a Tico through and through. He has a deep social conscience, is proud of his country and is well informed about its history, politics and the challenges it faces.

We meet in his office in the Best Western Hotel Kamuk, a landmark in Quepos because it overlooks the levy and the Pacific beyond. Its restaurant on the third floor, Mira Olas, provides a panorama of the entire waterfront.

I’m curious about the hotel’s name, and Luis answers that Kamuk is a Bribri word meaning “white stones”. “We wanted something more Costa Rican, more identified with our culture,” he explains. “Most hotels close to the coast use foreign names, referring to the sea, beaches or sunsets.” He adds that the second highest peak in Costa Rica is also called Cerro Kamuk.

Luis says that he considers the Kamuk, opened in 1990, to be his greatest professional achievement. Through it, he and his parents were able to fulfill his father’s long-time dream to build the first multi-story, “middle level” hotel in Quepos.

“My father used to joke that he was going to construct a building where he could stand on the rooftop and see Puntarenas,” Bolaños recalls with a smile. The idea of a middle level hotel, he goes on, was to provide affordable, quality accommodation for tourists, sports fishermen, business people and others in the midst of Costa Rican life. “In Kamuk you have Costa Rican contacts. In other hotels, you meet only tourists,” he says.

I ask Bolaños about his family history. He tells me that both his parents moved to Quepos in the late 1940s. His father was from San Lorenzo, Heredia, and his mother, from Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. Both parents were from very poor families and Quepos offered the prospect of earning a little more. His father arrived at the age of 17, penniless. On his third day, Luis says, he found a job loading bananas into a ship on the pier. Over the next few years he studied sewing and eventually rented a house (where is now the Tsunami Sushi now stands) and five sewing machines for his own business.

Luis’ mother, who married his father four years after moving to Quepos, was a primary school teacher. Luis says she was able to earn 180 colones a month here, compared to only 80 colones in Santa Cruz. This was important because, at that time, she was supporting two of her siblings who were studying in San José. The reason for this large difference in salary was that Quepos was endemic for malaria in the 1940s and thus considered a hardship post.

Luis says that his parents started their life together working very hard. His father travelled around the farms and businesses of the area taking orders for trousers from the workers. After a few years his father bought the Garza, a general on the corner where the hotel now stands.

I ask how his parents acquired the Garza. “It’s interesting how things happen,” he replies. His father knew a lot of people in the area because of his tailoring business and had come to know the owner of the Garza, then a small store. One time the owner had to go away for eight days and asked his father to look after the store for him. “In eight days my father had sold as much as the owner sold in 30 days,” Luis says, so the owner suggested that he buy the business.

In the Garza, his father was able to combine his tailoring business with the store. In a few years his mother renounced teaching and started working in the Garza as well. Luis points out that, even though his father had only three years of education, he was very intelligent. “My mother was the person who organized him,” he adds.

Business has always been a central part of Bolaños’ life. He says that, from an early age, he was involved in the family business and was “legally emancipado . Although the legal age of adulthood in Costa Rica was 21 at that time, he assumed most adult privileges at only 15 years old, thanks to his father’s backing.  He was able to have a driver’s license and open a bank account.  “The only thing I couldn’t do was vote,” he says.

Luis studied business administration at the Instituto Técnico de Administración de Negocios,(ITAN ),  in San José. Even during those years he was in constant communication with his parents and their business.  He recalls how his mother would send him telegrams and letters with lists of things she wanted him to do, such as buying goods from stores, shipping things to Quepos, banking, etc. He spent his vacations in Quepos, working in the Garza. “I learned more by experience than by studying alone. When you study, it’s theory. Combining theory and practice is what counts,” he tells me.

After finishing his Bachelor of Administration in 1978, Bolaños spent four years as a chargé d’affaires at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Romania.  He says that, while he enjoyed the diplomatic life, he had different things on his mind. He was anxious to return to Quepos “to do something in this corner”, he says, pointing outside. “We always thought we could make a hotel here. That was our vision.”

Luis says that growing up in the business world made him realize the importance of promoting and encouraging young people. His hotel, he notes, is mostly composed of young staff members from the Quepos area. He cites an example of a 26 year old staff member from Quepos who worked her way up from a front desk clerk to the second highest post in the hotel. “I’m the only old person here,” he laughs.

Bolaños says he is not worried about the impact of development on the Quepos community. He recounts how, in his student days, he did a project on the development of Quepos, in which he included a marina and the expansion of the airport. He sees positive aspects of development in the improvement of the waterfront through cooperation among local companies. Bolaños is seeking permission to plant a garden along the levy in front of the Kamuk.

Although positive about these developments, Luis is adamant that they must provide opportunities for local people, rather than bringing in workers from outside the area. If the stimulation of local employment occurs, Quepos development will be a good thing for everyone, he argues. “If I have the power and political influence on decision-making, I will require the marina to contract at least 90% Costa Ricans as employees.” He would also like to see more post-secondary educational institutions in Quepos so that high school graduates could continue their studies locally.

I inquire about his role in the founding of Manuel Antonio Park. He takes me back to when he and his friends were “very angry” because an extranjero had purchased the land and blocked off access to the beaches. According to Costa Rican law, beaches are public access.

“One night we were sitting around talking about this,” Luis recalls, “and we decided to break into that property. We rounded up about 50 more people from Quepos and, at around midnight, we stormed the gate and destroyed part of the house.” He says that the owner was not there at the time, “but we managed to demonstrate that we did not accept what he was doing.”

The next day police from San José came looking for them, but the matter was amicably resolved.  Luis recounts that they met with the property owner who was forced to provide access to the beach.  After this, he and his friends lobbied at various political levels to achieve an agreement for the government to purchase the land and establish a national park.  To this day, he says, 50% of the revenue from park entrance fees go to pay off this land.

Bolaños is a proud member of the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana and highlights the achievements of President Calderón Guardia who, he says, created the social conditions of which Costa Rica is so proud today. He mentions bettering workers’ conditions through the introduction of the labor code and social security, universal health care, and the founding of the University of Costa Rica and the National Symphony. He also praises Costa Rica’s public policy on salaries, guaranteeing workers the rights to legal minimum wages, holidays and basic rights. “You cannot have slaves here, and I can say most of companies in Costa Rica treat their workers according to the laws.”

As a businessman, Bolaños puts his beliefs into practice.  For example, during this economic crisis, he has done his best to retain his staff, and not fire them or cut back on their hours.  “When companies start to fire people,” he points out, “they only contribute to the crisis. If people don’t have money they won’t buy and the factories won’t produce. You will have more crime as well.”

Asked about difficulties he has faced in his life, Luis says that, like everyone, he has faced problems, but he insists that such difficulties make you stronger. “You have to find a way to enjoy them,” he says. “Take the current economic situation.  You worry a little, ok? But don’t die, don’t hide, you don’t stop! After you pass through the problems you’ll feel great. Just imagine, if you had only good things in your life how boring it would be!”

When I ask him who has inspired him most in his professional life, he answers that he has benefited from the advice of many friends over his lifetime. Still, his parents were his greatest inspiration. He worked with them hand in hand all his life. His father, he says, was a leader in his way of doing business and in his actions. His mother enjoyed socializing and had many friends. He tells me how they died within two months of one another, a very hard time for Luis and his family.

I am touched when he turns to his safe and removes his mother’s address book. In her beautiful handwriting there are pages and pages of addresses and phone numbers. “You can’t imagine the telephone bills of my mother,” he smiles.  At the age of 80, the year before she died, she was named Reina de las Abuelas (Queen of the Grandmothers) in a Catholic church fund-raiser.

Luis is married to Doňa Odilia María , of Santa Bárbara de Heredia.  They have one daughter, one son and one grandson. His daughter, Pamela, is a psychologist in the Quepos hospital and his son, Ronald, who worked for 10 years with a large company in San José, is preparing a project with his father.

When I ask if he has anything else to add, Bolaños says that, in the years to come, he hopes to see Quepos much more developed than it is now, especially socially. Anyone can come to invest here, he points out, but they need to give something back to Costa Rica. This can be by direct financial assistance, creating educational and employment opportunities, or even by providing new ideas and directions.

“I’ve seen Quepos develop economically,” he says, “but we have to work harder on social things – schools, projects for youth, opportunities like that.”

Filed under: Carol Vlassoff, Personalities in Our Midst on November 23rd, 2009
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