Business

LATIN AMERICAN
CRAFTS MORE
THAN ART TO
JUNE CASTRO

NORTH VANCOUVER
businesswoman June Castro
knows a goad deal when she
sees one — at least when it
comes to Latin and South
American art.

Ry SURE RATTAN

News Reporter

Castro, who runs Caravan Im-
ports, ‘a contemporary and tradi-
donal third world crafts’ store in
North Vancouver, mage her first
trip to Latin and South “:nerica in
1973, and travelled arcuad the
area with a pack sack on ner back.

“{ had always wantcd to go
there, after watching the features
on National Geographiz,"’ says
Castro. ‘ft had a chance to buy
(craft) items for a smali shop on
West Fourth Avenue in Van-
couver. It took me into the villages
of Latin America and .ntcroduced
me to Latin American crafts."

She started out in Colurnabia and
went to Brazil and then oa to
Venezuela where she worked like a
female Donaid Trump in the
business of buying and selling of
crafts.

“T purchased emeralds in Brazil
and took them to Peru and sold
them for douvle the price. Then I
moved into Venezuela and started
bringing in the crafts to Boliva,
Peru, Ecuador and Columbia,”
says Castro.

At that time Castro was the only
person in Latin and South America
who was importing crafts from one
country and selling them for

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PAGE 52

woman brings S. America to N. Van

45 - Sunday, Apri

1 22, 1990 - North Shore News

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

JUNE CASTRO, owner of Caravan Imports, shows a devil mask made of papier mache, one of several items she imports from Latin and South
America, which has proved to be an adventure at times.

wholesale prices in another.

But touring those countries
wasn't as glamorous as it may
sound, says Castro. While she
laughs about it now, there were
several times she became caught up
in cloak and dagger type of in-
cidences.

“In the first years I'd go into
villages that tourists wouldn't go
into, often travelling down rivers

ons

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to get there. | was actually follow-
ed for two days by the secret police
in Bolivia because I was so used to
going from country to country and
I forgot to get my entry visas back
into Bolivia, and consequently f
was regarded as a suspicious per-
son.

“They put tails on me. } can
remember going to a movie with a
friend in Bolivia and having people

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leaning over me in the theatre,"
says Castro. ‘*They were also sta-
tioned outside my hotel room.’’
She adds that one time she went
to La Paz, Bolivia and went into a
woman's washroom with a pack

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sack on her back. Looking back on
that now, Castro admits the move
was a mistake.
“They must have thought | was
See Running
Page 46

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