I can remember when I was a little girl and every summer I used to visit my mom's family and every…read moretime my aunt would bring me here to choose a barbie. One time we were looking for a stuffed lion, and we went to every store in Oaxaca looking for it, finally we went to Escaparate and we found it. Even a couple years ago the same thing happened to me, I went to every store looking for a race track for my son and after looking & looking for weeks they finally got it here. The prices are a bit high, but you can find anything from balls, lego, backpacks and lunch bags, dolls and everything in between, If you're looking for a special toy visit this place, you won't be dissapointed. You can also get your gifts wrapped for free.

If you are visiting Oaxaca, take a quick half-day trip about an hour outside of the city to San…read moreMartin Tilcajete, a small town that specializes in making the hand carved and painted alebrijes. Learn more about them on wikipedia. No one is alike! Joaquin at la iguana magica has in my opinion the best selection of them in this town. He and his family have been producing them for more than 30 years. If you buy in large quantity, be sure to ask him for a discount or a free figure. He will bargain hard, but you can usually get up to 15% off his list prices. It will be much cheaper for you to buy these here than in Oaxaca because you cut out the middleman. Insiders tip: here's how to get there and back most quickly. Go to the cathedral in the zocalo in oaxaca and proceed to the taxi stand. Agree on your one-way fare in advance. It should cost anywhere from 100 to 200 pesos. If the taxi driver quotes you more, just go to another taxi driver in the lineup as we did. Upon returning from San Martin, just recognize you will have fewer taxi choices back to the city. You may have to pay more on the way back as a result. If you are driving, I apologize in advance. I was the first to review this business, and for some reason yelp cannot find the right address. This little town is about one hour outside of Oaxaca, not an eight minute drive.

This is probably a lot of kids' favourite place. The store…read moreis not very big but it has an ok selection of toys. A couple years ago I was looking for some Lego duplo sets, and a relative recommended coming here, after looking for it and asking an employee I found out they didn't sell that set. Honestly they're Lego duplo options are very limited, everytime I Visit probably probably there's 3-4 kinds. This year I really wanted to buy some play doh, I remembered last year they had different sets available, but sadly when I went lasting they're selection was crappy. On the other hand I had been looking for a basketball hoop w/base for a small child and here was the only place where I found a good quality one and it even was on sale.

There's so many I've bought here, but mainly toys at Escaparate. There's a business selling cheese…read moreand other dairy products that I try to avoid cause of the strong smell but they're actually quite tasty. There's a telecomm office which also serves as a western union. You can pay your electric bill at a CFE ATM. There's a healthy food restaurant that also does yoga lessons, a small coffee shop that opened not too long ago where there's some desserts available, a stationary store. On the street side there's a shoe store with really good deals (some copies but good quality ones) and a swimsuits store, which didn't convinced me at all (outdated swimsuits and expensive, I rather go to a department store and buy a brand name one for the same price sometimes even less).