Costa Rica doesn't overflow with native crafts. Apart from a few notable exceptions the gaily colored wooden carretas (ox-carts) which have become Costa Rica's tourist symbol, for example you must dig deep to uncover crafts of substance. There are few villages dedicated to a single craft or crafts, as in Mexico or Guatemala. Much that is sold for home decoration or to tourists reflects a mediocre kitsch culture that is imitative rather than creative (frankly, much is cheap junk). And, other than the carretas, there is nothing distinctly and recognizably costarricense.
Still, there are a few worthy exceptions. Guaitil, in Nicoya, retains the Chorotega Indian tradition of pottery. And Santa Ana is also famous for its ceramics: large greenware bowls, urns, vases, coffee mugs, and small tipico adobe houses fired in brick kilns and clay pits on the patios of some 30 independent family workshops, such as Ceramica Santa Ana (see p. 294). In Escazu, master craftsman Barry Biesanz (see p. 289) skillfully handles razor-sharp knives and chisels to craft subtle, delicate images, bowls as hemispherical as turned with a lathe, and decorative boxes with tight dovetailed corners from carefully chosen blocks of tropical woods: lignum vitae (ironwood), narareno (purple heart), rosewood, satinwood, and tigerwood.
Many of the best crafts in Costa Rica come from Sarchi�. Visitors are welcome to enter the factory of oxcarts and watch the families and master artists at work producing exquisitely contoured bowls, serving dishes, and most notably miniature versions of the oxcarts (oxcarts) for which the village is now famous worldwide. Although an occasional full-size oxcart is still made, today most of the oxcarts made in Sarchi� are folding miniature trolleys like little hot dog stands- that serve as liquor bars or indoor tables, and half size carts used as garden ornaments or simply to accent a corner of a home. The carts are painted in dazzling white or burning orange and decorated with geometric mandala designs and floral patterns that have found their way, too, onto wall plaques, kitchen trays, and other craft items. Sarchi� and the Moravia suburb of San Jose are also noted for their leather satchels and purses.
There's not much in the way of clothing. However, the women of Drake Bay are famous for molas, colorful and decorative hand-sewn applique used for blouses, dresses, and wall hangings. Of indigenous art there is also little, though the Boruca Indians carve balsa wood masks light, living representations of supernatural beings and decorated gourds, such as used as a resonator in the quijongo, a bowed-string instrument.
Art and Culture 
