CRAFTS

Many of the best crafts in Costa Rica come from Sarchí. Visitors are welcome to enter the fábricas
de carretas and watch the families and master artists at work producing exquisitely contoured
bowls, serving dishes, and--most notably--carretas (oxcarts), for which the village is now famous
worldwide. Although an occasional full-size oxcart is still made, today most of the carretas made in
Sarchí 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. Sarchí and the Moravia suburb of San José are also noted for their leather
satchels and purses.

There's not much in the way of traditional clothing. However, the women of Drake Bay are famous
for molas, colorful and decorative hand-sewn appliqué used for blouses, dresses, and wall
hangings. Of indigenous art there is also little, though the Borucas 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.