Costa Rica Guide
San José
Shopping
1 Atmósfera C 5, Av 1 Elegant gallery-like outlet selling jewellery, furniture and woodwork.
2 CANAPI C 11, Av 1 Big shop with a good stock of wooden bowls, walking sticks and boxes.
3 Hotel Don Carlos C 9, Av 9 Good pre-Columbian artefacts and jewellery reproductions.
4 La Casona C 0, Av 0/1 Large two-floor marketplace with stalls selling the usual local stuff along with Guatemalan knapsacks and bedspreads. It's great for browsing, and the traders are friendly, but quality at some stalls is pretty poor, and there's not one good T-shirt in evidence.
5 
Mercado Central Av 0/1, C 6/8 The place to buy coffee beans, but make sure they're export quality – ask for Grano d'Oro ("Golden Bean").
6 Mercado Nacional de Artesanía C 22, Av 2 bis. One of the country's largest retailers of souvenirs and crafts, featuring Sarchí ox-carts, jewellery, woodwork and all the usual T-shirts.
7 Plaza Esmeralda La Uruca, Pavas, about 5m northwest of city centre Craft cooperative run by local artisans where you can watch cigars being rolled, necklaces being set and the ubiquitous Sarchí ox-carts being painted. Closed Sun.
8 Sol Maya Paseo Colón C 18/20 Rather pricey indigenous and Guatemalan arts and crafts.
9 Tienda de la Naturaleza Curridabat Av 0, 1km east of San Pedro The shop of the Fundación Neotrópica, this is a good place to buy the posters, T-shirts and other paraphernalia painted by English artist Deirdre Hyde that you see all over the country. She specializes in the landscapes of tropical America and the animals that live there, jaguars in particular.
10 Chispas C 7, Av 0/1 
223-2240 Sells new and secondhand books, and has the best selection of English-language fiction in town. It also sells a good array of guidebooks and books about Costa Rica (in English and Spanish), plus the New York Times, El País and several English-language magazines.
11 Lehmann Av 0, C 1/3 223-1212 Has a good selection of mass-market Spanish-language fiction and non-fiction, as well as maps, children's books and a small (mainly secondhand) collection of English language books.
12 The Librería Internacional branches 300m west of Taco Bell in Barrio Dent ( 253-9553) and in the Multiplaza Escazú ( 298-1138) Has the best selection of international fiction; they also stock travel books and Spanish-language fiction, as well as books in English and German.
13 Librería Universal Av 0, C/1 222-2222 Strong on Spanish fiction, books about Costa Rica (in Spanish), and country maps. Librería y Bazar Guillen at La Coca-Cola bus terminal is a good place to browse for reading material before leaving on a long trip. Macondo, opposite the entrance to the library at the university campus in San Pedro, is probably the best bookshop in town for literature in Spanish, especially from Central America, as well as academic disciplines such as sociology and women's studies.
14 Mora Books Av 1, C 3/5, in the Omni building 255-4136 A pleasant shop with a good selection of secondhand English-language books, CDs, guidebooks, magazines and comics.
15 7th Street Books C 7, Av 0/1 256-8251 Has both new and used books, including English literature, and also a wide selection of books and maps on Costa Rica in English and Spanish.