Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Book carved above door; tiles depicting scenes from Don Quixote.
By Karen Wright
Hola! When we decided to go to Costa Rica, I told Mike Stillman, and he was enthused about an article on Costa Rican booksellers; "And pictures, too," said Mike!
We left Reno and arrived in L.A. about 8:30 PM. We had to hurry up and wait for another three hours in L.A., a portion of which was taken up by a chaotic double shuttle tour from one terminal to another. Let me just say that riding in a shuttle across lanes of bus traffic while humongous airplanes use the same routes as our little tiny bus, is a rather unsettling experience in the dark. LAX is bigger than the town in which we live. Of course, I had to scope out the latest pocket books in the over-priced gift shops in the airport. I had three unread paperback novels in my luggage, and later I was glad I had brought them, because, to tell the truth, there really aren't many bookstores in Costa Rica.
We finally boarded the AA flight about midnight, oh yay! We felt like sardines in a can, but, oh well, we were on the road again and giddy. Not so giddy, after seven hours in the stuffy sardine, but we were treated to coffee and a beautiful sunrise over the Cordillera Mountains that are the backbone of Costa Rica. The country is actually quite small by our western standards; you can see both coasts and several volcanoes from the plane on a clear day. It is slightly smaller than West Virginia, but has some incredible mountains, many of which we explored over the month we were there.
We caught a taxi, gave him directions to our hotel, and we were off! Hang onto your hat! I've been chauffeured by some wild-eyed maniacs in my life, taking cabs in Boston, New York, London, D.C., Toronto, Hawaii, and Charlotte Amalia, but this guy put them to shame. He hurtled us with white knuckle speed down the congested highway from the airport in jig time, screeching around an incredible array of tiny, one-lane streets ubiquitous with pedestrians, dogs, taxis, and buses. He courteously, but quickly, dumped us at the door of our hotel, then screeched off again to terrorize some other poor, unsuspecting tourists. We were so exhausted we went straight to our charming little inn and slept for three hours. We made a decision right then and there to take public buses so that we could actually see how the Ticos live and work (and save lots of bucks, and perhaps our very lives.)
One of the nicest things about Costa Rica was the little hotels, guest houses, inns, and cabinas where we stayed. The most expensive splurges were a couple of hotels in San Jose where the rooms were $40 a night; the least expensive were on the beach in Tamarindo and Manzanillo for $17-$20 a night. There wasn't a huge difference in quality, all were clean and comfortable. Most of them were painted bright colors, had interesting local artwork on the walls (not Holiday Inn "artist" sale stuff), and the people who ran them were friendly, helpful, and very hands-on when you needed to get laundry done, find a place to eat, find a bus stop, or plan any sort of outing to anywhere in the country.
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Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Typical bookseller's cart in San Jose; the "bookstore" in Rope Americana.
We stayed the first week at the Hemingway Inn, which we picked because of the literary reference, and because it was so damn cute. It, like many buildings in C.R. was rife with bougainvillea, palms, helinconia, and other tropical flowers and plants, inside and out. We figured it must have been the home of Ernesto Hemingway when he lived in C.R., but as it turned out, E.H. had never been to Cost Rica -- there probably weren't enough big animals to murder! It seems that the person who originally owned the house had a Hemingway fixation and there was Hemingway paraphernalia all over the place.
The Inn was a nicely remodeled, 1920s affair, right in Barrio Amon (the city is split into barrios or neighborhoods), really close to downtown where the action is. It was very reasonably priced and came complete with outdoor patio, complimentary breakfast area, hot tub, very independent on-demand shower heads, and two shelves of "take one, leave one" books in all languages; I took one and left one.
Right across the street was another hotel in a former residence. Beside the hotel was a door on the outside gate that had a beautiful book carved into the top of it; the house was the former residence of the Minister of Cultural Affairs.
All along the brick wall of this yard, were colorful tiles set into the wall depicting scenes from Don Quixote. We thought maybe this was a good sign for finding bookstores, but it didn't turn out that way.
After our first week at Hemingway's, we moved a few blocks away to what turned out to be our major (much quieter) home away from home. Kap's Place in San Jose was a charming little guest house hidden behind a big, red garage door, with the security of Fort Knox. It was a place we could park our extra luggage and the laptop when we went off for a week to some other part of the country, then come back, spend a night regrouping, and bus off again, knowing our stuff was secure.
Bookstores in C.R., which has a population of a bit over 4.1 million (most of whom live in the larger cities), can be anything from a shelf in a clothing store littered with tattered used books to a rare, almost Barnes & Noble-like affair in a mall; well lit, and well stocked. As we strolled along the narrow streets of downtown San Jose, we only found two or three real bookstores. Mora Used Books is touted in the newspaper as a good used bookstore, but it was mostly well-used paperbacks, CDs, rock music, DVDs, comic books, and not very good hardbacks. I found a lot of the same commonplace books that we see here in every thrift store. It was rather dingy and books were stacked in total chaos all over the place. The store seemed to be full of English speakers, looking for new mysteries or romance novels to take along to the beach. I scanned a few shelves and most of them were quite antiquated while not being antiques. We didn't really find anyone to talk to except the clerk, who, though very pleasant, didn't speak any English, and did not know much about the store itself.
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Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Lexicon Library; librarians Nicole Dilello and Leslie Borasse (courtesy of Lexicon).
The second store was 7th Street Books, a new book store with a rack of used books in the back, and an attached espresso bar. It was a small, clean, well-lit store, but I was amazed at the price of the new books; about one-third more than they would have been here in the States. They had a very limited selection of books on Costa Rica, some novels, a few coffee-table art books, some pop fiction, and the like. Most of their stock, the clerk said, was designed for tourist "consumption", so to speak. Our next stop, as we walked along, was to grab a picture of a "typical" Costa Rican bookseller with this rolling caretta y sombrillo (cart and umbrella).
It was cooler than we expected in San Jose, and we were without long sleeves or long pants. We stopped in a store called Ropa Americana. It was a great place to shop for really good, slightly used or seconds of label clothes; i.e. L.L. Bean, Calvin Klein, and Jones of New York. We bought our warmer clothes, paid about $10.00 for several shirts, pants, and a couple of long skirts to keep the skeeters off my ankles. As we left, we spotted a shelf with a sparse collection of rather well-used books. "What are these," I asked in Spanish? "That's our bookstore," replied the clerk. I had to have a picture; she thought I was a page shy of a novel.
We found a copy of The Tico Times, the English-speaking, weekly newspaper, and there we found an advertisement for The Lexicon Lending Library, the only English-book library in Costa Rica. My antennae went up and bleeped. Since we had not had good luck with bookstores, we called the library to see if there was anyone there who could or would give me some info on books and book dealers. "Come on over," said Leslie Borasse, one of the two librarians.
We took a taxi on a beautiful sunny afternoon. The Library was located in the Sabanna area of San Jose in a very nice part of town where many English and American ex-pats live and work. It was in a rather elegant private home which had been converted to house the library and the founder's insurance company. It, like all buildings in San Jose, had the requisite iron barred gate and locks.
Leslie greeted us cheerfully and introduced us to Nicole Dilello, the second librarian. They gave us a tour of their library. We asked Leslie about the lack of bookstores and libraries in Costa Rica. "Ticos are very literate people, but they don't read much for pleasure," she replied. "If you see someone reading as they wait for a bus or sit in a dentist's office, they probably aren't Ticos."
We asked her how Lexicon got started. "John Michael Garrett is the founder. On May 25, 2002 the Lexicon Library was opened in Escazu another suburb of San Jose, but now is located in Sabanna. We began with 600 books and now we have about 6000. Michael was a big reader and couldn't find any English language books to read; it is very difficult to find good English-language books in C.R. He wanted to provide the English-speaking community in Costa Rica with good books." Leslie told us that when they get too many of one title or books they don't need, they share with other communities in other parts of Costa Rica such as Jaco, Guanacaste, the Reforma prison, and so on.
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Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Libros Nueva Decada; Lorena Ramirez, the almost only woman taxi driver in Costa Rica.
Garrett's insurance company, Garrett & Asociados, supports the library. It is a non-profit organization. The members pay a small fee for their membership, which helps with the upkeep. The library offers books that cover a wide range of classics, fiction, and reference, all in English and all shelved by the Dewey decimal system. They also have an excellent selection of children's books, business books, art books, and are getting new things in every day. Members come in, sign up, pay the fee, and can keep the books for as long as a month. Besides Leslie and Nicole, there are several volunteers that come in to shelve books. The atmosphere is very friendly, home-like, and has a small lounge and coffee area for people to relax and peruse books they might wish to borrow. Their website, www.lexiconlibrary.com, is interesting. We bid Leslie adieu, promising to send a box of newer mysteries and other fiction, and went on our way.
In our continuing search for bookstores, we went, at the suggestion of Brenna Ruiz-Gordon, a delightful young student friend, to the University of Costa Rica's part of town, San Pedro. We had found, so far, that most bookstores, generally called Librerias, were places where they sold textbooks, notebooks, newspapers, cigars, snacks, kids' books, and magazines, but not many general interest books. We found that to be true almost everywhere except in San Pedro, with its proximity to UCR. Here we found several used bookstores; Clara Luna's and Libros Nueva Decada, were two of them.
We also found one bookstore that was a tiny vegetarian restaurant or "soda" as their cafes are called. We never could find Clara Luna's open. We went back a couple of times during our stay and it was still closed. We asked around and other shopkeepers nearby said that the owner came in "algunas veces - sometimes".
We did locate one spiffy new bookstore called Libreria Antares. It was pristine clean, all new books, all in Spanish, well lit, and empty of customers. Most of their books were the "required reading" books for University courses. The two clerks were most cordial. The woman spoke excellent English, the man, none. I interviewed them, asking about the problems of book dealing in C.R. They have, they said, many of the same problems we have -- books are expensive, hard to find, and, in their case, most have to be shipped from other countries, which is very expensive. They reiterated what others had told us; that people in C.R. don't read much except text books. They also said the same thing Leslie said; Ticos are literate, almost all read and write, but rarely read for pleasure. Our friend Brenna is an exception to that rule; she reads a lot, but she also speaks excellent English and she spends a good deal of time in the U.S. where she has a sweetheart. We wandered the University district for a while, finding Libreria Universitaria, a text and technical bookstore with a small, but interesting collection of fiction and nonfiction in Spanish, English, and German; lots of German books in the little hotel bookshelves; lots of German tourists.
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Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Modern Libreria Antares caters mainly to students.
We left San Jose shortly thereafter to go to the deep, dark Caribbean beach and jungle town of Manzanillo. It feels like a 1930s Bogart movie set, rife with palms, mangrove swamps, flowers, and, of course, tourists. Lo and behold, we found two bookstores. One was in a Thai Restaurant on the outskirts of Puerto Viejo, about 10 miles north of Manzanillo, and was primarily English and Spanish used books, with a smattering of German, that had been collected and shelved by David, another English-speaking person who wanted to find something to read.
Just down the road a piece, we found a sign at the edge of the jungle; "Echo Books." From the sign, one had to walk about a half mile down a narrow gravel path with thick jungle on either side. We were waiting for a bus that we could not miss, or we would have gone there to see what was up; it looked intriguing. I think we may have missed the only real used bookstore in Costa Rica! I spoke with an American gal in the restaurant nearby and she said it was a really nice store, 3-4 rooms, with lots of used English books; sorry we missed it.
We were getting toward the end of our month-long journey and had heard about a really fine library that we shouldn't miss. It was in a town called Turrialba, known for its volcano and its agricultural status. Here we found another exception to the rare reader rule, a Tica named Lorena Maria Quirós Ramirez. Now, here was an interesting gal! She was, she told me, the only woman taxi driver in Costa Rica. We later found out that there are two others; one in San Jose and one in Cartago, but she is a third generation taxi driver. Her grandfather, father and brother had all driven taxis in Turrialba. Her brother died in an accident and she took over his driving job, and has been doing it for years. She was just a hoot! Lorena was a friendly, beautiful Latina, and one of the two sanest taxi drivers we rode with the whole time. When we got into her cab in the pouring rain, to head the 5 kms to the CATIE Institute, she was reading a book of Spanish poems. We yakked, a mile a minute, in broken Spanglish, all the way to our destination, El Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigatión y Enseñanza, aka CATIE.
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Bookstores in Costa Rica
- By Karen Wright
Volcano Irazu
Short explanation; our bookstore in Northern Nevada specializes in botany, horticulture, gardening, and books on how to do just about anything. We carry almost no fiction, no lit, and only small sections on western history. When we travel, we hit lots of botanical gardens, thrift stores, and bookstores, searching for stock for our store. CATIE is a world renowned school where they prepare future leaders, develop new techniques, and support regional rural development with an eye toward sustainable agriculture and ecology. And beside that, they have a killer bookstore/library on horticultural and agricultural subjects. We found wonderful bilingual books on orchids (the country's official flower), and bromeliads (which hang by the zillions from trees all over the country), their 1000+ varieties of trees, and the gazillions of amazing flora that one practically has to hack through most everywhere in the country; it is way, way green! Additionally, their books were very reasonably priced. We spent a couple of hours there and our luggage weighed a good deal more when we left. Lorena came back for us and took us to the bus station where we bid her farewell and returned to San Jose.
That was our last book store, though we saw a few more little stands and shelves here and there in stores and hotels. Our swansong trip before leaving was to the inactive but astonishing Volcan Irazu, and then as we flew out of Costa Rica above Mexico, we saw the snow-capped peak of Volcan Pico de Orizaba, the highest point in Mexico.
Though Costa Rica is not a book buyer's paradise, and the food is okay, but nothing special, we can't recommend it enough for a wonderful vacation. We could, and might, go back again, because you can't see it all in one month. Go to the Pacific Northwest for books, San Francisco, New Orleans, France, or Thailand for food, but go to Costa Rica for friendly folks, beautiful, diverse landscapes, bright red macaws, amazing wildlife, incredible flowers, hand-rolled cigars, and amazing volcanoes, all packed into one small piece of land. Ciao !
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