I left New York with a few bags of pretty things and an idea. That was it.

I pitched magazines from a phone booth using my last dime. People signed up for a place that didn't exist yet — so I told them I was sold out, but they could reserve a spot if they paid now for months later. They paid. I built. That's how I got open.

I landed in what was then a sleepy little town. A woman, alone, in a male-dominated society. One hut at a time, I put it together. Celebrities started coming. It became a hotspot.

Then I expanded to what had been Pablo Escobar's house. Put everything I had into it. And lost it all — armed men, helicopters on the beach, the whole thing.

I could have gone home. I didn't.

I built the current Amansala from scratch, raised two kids in the middle of it, and I'm still here. Some say I'm a pioneer. A visionary. Or just plain gutsy.