Jonh
About town
by
, 06-22-2010 at 04:01 PM (4994 Views)
Today's mission was to go take out some money from the ATM so we could pay the workers who have finished the septic tank rebuild. My wife requested I pick up some ron con pasa ice cream at the Eskimo shop while I'm out. And since our daughter was bored I invited her and the dog along.
It's five blocks to the Bank Corner. On the last block before the corner, something in a shop caught my eye. I'd dropped my pocket knife while riding a horse out on the farm, and there were two knives there behind the counter of a sporting goods shop. We went inside and I asked to look at them. The young man was enthusiastic and a credit to the realm of customer service. Turns out the two knives were the same brand as the cheap Hicksville pawn shop knife I'd lost - Frost Cutlery. One was ugly zebra striped, but nice and light weight; the other had a green handle, was heavier, but much better balanced and more expensive. I chose that one, at C$350. My Visa card worked fine, but he had to use the old fashioned carbon paper device after phoning in some kind of code. The guy seemed trustworthy, but I'll keep an eye on my balance just in case. Tienda Deportiva Halcon is the name, the front is painted red.
About one third of the shop was team sports, like baseball and futbol plus some bb guns, a third was "edged" sports like hunting, camping, and general purpose knives, plus darts and such. The other third was firearms. I asked how much a box of 50 .45ACP ammo was. He said a thousand cordobas, or about U$47! About triple the price in the US. I didn't ask about gun prices, but stickers on a couple Glocks said "1200" which I assume is USD.
From there, we went to the ATM; my daughter played lookout while I did the deed. Then we set off for the Eskimo shop. I thought I remembered where it was, but we ended up walking in circles. Leave it to my daughter to remember where it was, though. One container of chocolate, and one of rum raisin (ron con pasas) came to C$80. At least we got some good exercise.
Everywhere, people commented how cute the dog was. I'm impressed with how well behaved most of the Esteli street dogs are. They just lie there and watch our dog trot by, or come up and politely smell his perro gringo butt and move along. A few behind fences bark, but not viciously. They probably want to come out and play.
We got home a few minutes before a brief rain shower cooled things down.