Mercado Borbón

A while ago, I decided to try some different options for my veggie shopping - I had been going to the feria (Farmer's Market) in Guadalupe, but since our move further into San José, and spending more time in class, it was less and less worth the trouble.  Getting vegetables at the grocery stores is iffy - there just isn't the selection that there is at a feria, and the prices are slightly higher.  My latest method is to take the bus into downtown to the Mercado Borbón.  The drawback to this is that I can't take my cart - I almost always end up with about 30 pounds of food, and that's a lot to carry around.

Food from a recent visit (about c500 = $1):

• carrots = 2 kilos / c400
• palmito (*fresh* hearts of palm) = 2 bags (over 1 kilo) / c1200
• avocado = 2 / c500
• culantro = 1 bunch / c50
• tomatoes = 1/2 kilo / c200
• spinach = 1 bunch / c300
• strawberries = 3 boxes / c1000
• mango = 1 kilo / c800
• mora = 1/2 kilo / c800
• onions = 1 kilo / c1000
• broccoli = 2 big heads / c1000
• cucumber = 2 for c275
• zucchini = 2 for c800
• green beans = 1 kilo / c1000
• platano maduro = 8 / c500
• chili dulce = 10 / c1000

One time I went, many prices were *high* - green beans were between c1600 and c2000 per kilo.  I was looking for zucchini, asking all over, and one vendor said that they were just too expensive!  I thought that was an interesting concept in sales - resellers at the market won't buy something if it is too expensive for their customers to want to buy.  The next week, prices had started to come down, and yes, the zucchini was back :-).