Shopping Recommendations
Books
Goodlight Books, Alajuela
www.goodlightbooks.com (Map on website)
Mora's, Ommni Building, Ave 1. C5-7, San Jose
Solo Bueno in San Ramon has over 2,500 English-language books. 1 block
north of the gas station entering San Ramon, right hand side.
Membership libraries: Lexicon: Very close to Sabana park, and they have a
map on their website.
www.lexiconlibrary.com ($10.00/year)
The English-language library near San Pablo is the Mark Twain Library
in the Centro Cultural Costarricense Nortamericano, the same place
that houses the Eugine O'Neil Theater, on Calle 37 north of Ave. Central (Paseo
Rubin Dairo), Bario Escalante. I believe membership is $45.00 a year with a
deposit of $25.00, overdue books are c500 per day.
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eBooks I Use the Sony Reader Digital Book and I am quite happy with it.
I download
books from different sources and find that if you shop around online you can get
a better deal than buying the print copies. The Sony Reader Digital Book
is quite easy to use and reads Adobe(R) PDF, RTF, TXT, BBeB and Microsoft Word
formats so its a lot less limited than other e-readers when it comes to your
options. As for places where you can download books, there are many
options.
Some of the ones I use are:
www.witguides.com/
www.free-ebooks.net/
www.freebookspot.org/
www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp
www.free-ebooks-download.org/
by Emilia 12/01/2009
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Umbrella maker in San Jose
Paragueria Rego in downtown San Jose. They are located 80m east of parque La
Merced (behind the newly renovated La Merced church on Avenida Segunda). They
also have a free customer parking lot across the street from Parque La Merced
(parallel to Avenida segunda). The repair shop is also around that area too-
free repairs for their umbrellas. You can also purchase these umbrellas at EPA,
same price, but very little selection.
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Cristal (aka Florida Destridoria) is the main bottled water company.
800-274-7825 (NO "1" in front) - Press 9 for English HOURS: Mon.-Fri.
8am-5:30pm, Sat. 8am-noon. Bottle delivered to your home as frequently as
YOU desire & they'll set it up for you: 1,650/bottle (the first time you pay for
the bottle [like a deposit]). Vicki 11/08/08
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Used appliances:
-Electro Gangas ph 2221-1463 50 meters south of the Toyota 2-Larigeo
International ph 2256-1950 locate from the Funeraria del Recuerdo 125 meters
west or Avenida 6 calle 30 y 32
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Asian Groceries
Super Asia 500 Meters south of the church San Juan Bautista in San Juan de Tibas.
From the center of San Jose, take the road to Tibas (calle 0) it will be a red
Chinese looking building on the left. If you get to Tibas you have gone too far.
Date 9/5/2004
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http://www.nievesdelteleno.com/
Source for Stevia
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Fabric Store Mother
Ship
We just located the fabric store mother ship . . . D'Selecta Ave 12-14, Calle4
Phone:222-7954
This place is twice the size of anything else and is full of runners from
furniture shops buys fabrics (when the trade buys there . . . ). Prices are
about 1/2 of the expensive place whose name I forget in Escazu. Avg
11,000/12,500 vs 6,500 to 7,000 colones from our shopping test today. D'Selecta
even has decent free parking.
Lazarro is another fabric shop about 5 blocks short of D'Selecta - nice stuff,
decent prices, small selection, knowledgeable people.
Also Yamuni has recently expanded it's offerings and opened up the back of the
store for more fabric. Prices pretty good but selection limited. Berni date
8/3/2007
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Buying a car in Costa Rica Article by Barry Sevens
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BEE PRODUCTS/HONEY INFO Contact John Alan Brealy at 680-2206. He is the owner of
the Chorotega brand of Bee products and is located in Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. He
speaks English. Products are sold in the San Jose area. Frank Drenckhahn date
11/15/2005
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Car Dealership
I just bought a used car in July from a dealer in San Joaquin de Flores de
Heredia and am really pleased with the dealership. I have been searching 2 YEARS
for the vehicle I want and been to many dealerships in the San Jose area. I am
really pleased with the way I was treated, the price and condition of the car I
got. The owner was really easy to bargain with. The name of the place is
TecniAutos and Carlos Chacon is the owner. Phone number 266-8232 or cell
384-4686. He doesn't speak any English but has a woman, named Jenny, in the
afternoon who does. The address is 500 meters east of Firestone. Heidi hei_jor@yahoo.com
Janet updated 10/1/2003
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SALSA LIZANO sources . . .
If you want to make Gallo Pinto when you return home, for it to be absolutely
authentic you will need to have Salsa Lizano to add to your recipe. If you
forgot to bring any home with you here are several websites where you can order
it:
http://stores.ebay.com/Costa-Rican-Store
http://www.nextag.com/lizano-salsa/search-html
http://www.eganga.com/online-discount-shopping/B000V2VZBU/Lizano-Salsa-Sauce-9-Oz-280ml.html
Some of the above are more expensive than others. The 23 oz. bottle will last
you a looooong time. The 9 oz. bottle is more than enough for most folks.
Also, Salsa Lizano is available in the US at:
Tico Y Marisol (retail grocery store)
6811 N Manhattan Ave Tampa, FL
33614-3866 Phone: 813-888-8248
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Janet has asked me to post my wine and liquor prices here on the list, rather
than just directing you all to my blog to see them. So here they are, I don't
know how the format is going to turn out, sorry if it's a bit scrambled. The
first number is the price in colones, and the next (last) number is in USD.
Marquez de Arienzo Gran
Reserva 1996 11078
$22.52
Marquez de Caceres Reserva 2001
8752 $17.79
Campo Viejo Gran Reserva 1997
7095 $14.42
Chianti Cecchi 2006 5547 $11.27
Campo Viejo Reserva 2001
4604 $9.36
Marquez de Caceres 2003 and 2004
4842 $9.84
Marquez de Arianzo Crianza 2002
4409 $8.96
Sichel Bordeaux Rouge 2005
4106 $8.35
Campo Viejo Crianza 2003
3896 $7.92
Woodbridge Zinfadel 2002
3786 $7.70
Yellow Tail Shiraz
3426 $6.96
Frontera Merlot Rosado 1500ml
3159 $6.42
Sunrise Carmenere Concha y Toro
2952 $6.00
Rene Barbier 2005
2534 $5.15
Sunrise Merlot Concha y Toro
2064 $4.20
Frontera Rose 750ml
1605 $3.26
Baileys Original 1000ml
5772 $11.73
Smirnoff 1750ml
5515 $11.21
Ron Rico Coconut 750ml
3111 $6.32
Jon 2008
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Bamboo furniture..San Isidro de General
I don't have a map detailed enough nor names of the roads but I did manage to
find my way there using Google Earth just now... so do you have your GPS and are
you ready for an adventure?! Or if you have Google Earth you can find the
location with the following latitude and longitude: 9 23'56.22"N 83 44'01.31"W
The best directions I can give are as follows:
From the "high" road (that cuts from La Palma which is west of San Isidro on the
road towards Dominical) to the Interamericana highway going past the cemetary
and a MOPT facility) the turn to Pedregosito is close to the Interamericana. I
even think I've seen a sign pointing towards it, maybe even at this very
intersection! But in case the sign isn't there, the turn off the "high" road is
a cross roads with the "high" road. The other road that crosses the high road
and is leading away from San Isidro is the direction to go to find Sur Bambu.
I'm not sure if the cross road is one way in the direction of San Isidro (from
the "high" road) but the cross road you need to take also hits the
Interamericana 2 streets north of where the Musoc bus terminal is located. For
reference, the "high" road is the third street going north after the Musoc block
on the Interamericana, just past the double block with the college.
OK, so the easiest way to find this intersection is to turn onto the "high" road
from the Interamericana (heading towards La Palma) and it is the 2nd right turn
and the 1st cross roads. I'm not counting small residential streets or dirt
alleys in that count. Once you have found the right intersection on the "high
road" go in the direction away from San Isidro (northwest) and you will pass a
Ferreteria (I think Xiamara) on the right after about a block, then after
another block go straight through a strange intersection with roads coming in to
form a shallow X along with a couple others just for fun. Now you know you are
on the right road. If you turn on the 1st right on the high road, but before the
cross road you will also hit this weird X intersection and will need to merge
right into the cross road and continue. You will have to drive for a while
(several km) up and down and around some twisty turns. Then you will get to a
nice little town with a pretty school, park, and church on the right, and a
couple of speed bumps (this is probably Pedregoso or Pedregosito). Up a small
hill by the church and there is an intersection with paved road going right,
dirt to the left, and paved going straight but down the hill. Make the right a
nd drive for a while (several km) along a bit of a ridge line, then down a hill
past a large Gringo house on the left, then a church on the right, over a bridge
and stream, and there it is on your left. There should be a "Sur Bambu" sign and
you turn left into a dirt road going into the jungle. The road so far has been
paved but no 4x4 is needed anyway on this dirt road into Sur Bambu. You will
pass through a pretty little section of primary forest (near the stream) and
then into the bamboo. Keep going until you get to the end where they have the
factory and sales office.
We bought furniture there and are fairly happy with it. The price was certainly
right. A couple of things, people will tell you that bugs like to make nests
inside the poles and that is true. Also our furniture got moldy and the bamboo
needed to be wiped every week for probably 6 months. I think this is because it
was freshly made and therefore not completely dried out. So you might want to
look to see if any of the road side places on the way to Dominical have what you
want and if so maybe it has been sitting there a while and may be more dried
out. Another thing is that the cushions are not very comfy and we ended up
having another place remake the cushions using firmer foam and dura-suade
coverings after a bit over a year. Big improvement. Our furniture is sort of
outside, under a roof and never in the rain but still outside. So our experience
with mold and bugs may be somewhat worse than you could expect when using the
furnature indoors. -- Mike