By any standard, Angélica Taco Rojas is a successful business owner. The fact that she excels in a poor community with little formal education is even more impressive. After developing cooking skills through years of observing her mother, Angélica borrowed $300 from Global Partnerships microfinance partner FONDESURCO to help start a business selling prepared food at the local market. Over the past 15 years, she and her husband steadily grew her business and used her savings to buy property and open a combination restaurant/hotel: “Los Portales Restaurant and Hostal.”

Today she offers lodging to the throngs of tourists exploring southern Peru’s Colca Valley for its natural beauty and sightings of giant Andean condors. Her hotel boasts 16 rooms and 10 employees and is open every day of the year. Complementing the lodging is a buffet-style restaurant, where guests and locals alike enjoy traditional Peruvian dishes.

In addition to her hotel and restaurant, Angélica rents a van to serve as a tour and transport business.  Her dream is to own and operate cabin rentals in the countryside.  She credits FONDESURCO with helping her buy property and open up her restaurant/hotel, and enjoys the ability to prepay her loans without penalty, a luxury other institutions don’t offer.

Angélica and her husband have four children ranging in age from 10 months to 20 years.  One child attends the local high school, and her two oldest children study tourism at the technical institute in Arequipa.

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