Mapaches In Granada

I continue to enjoy Granda. It’s very different than anything else I’ve seen in Central America. Is much older for one thing. This internet shop was built around 1860 and the building next door was first built in 1529!

The place is cosmopolitan, there’re original art works in most every shop,
house and resturant. The coffee isn’t as good as Costa Rica. The streets
are wider and paved with cobblestones or brick. Horse drawn wagons of all
sorts are as common as cars. Given the gas price of $4.05 per gal that
makes sense. Some of the carts have wooden wheels, some are beautiful old
coaches, some are fitted with car wheels, tires and differentials. Some
are pulled by double oxen teams, actually the oxen carts are only in the
countryside.

My little house was built in the mid 1800’s. I’ve got a small backyard overlooking William Walker’s old house. I sit outside on the sidewalk in one of the portable chairs we carry with us and watch the goings on. I hear lots of clip-clop sounds as every third vehicle involves a horse. Bentley has even gotten used to horse drawn carriages rolling by.

I noticed my neighbor went shopping yesterday. A horse carriage arrived at her door and away they went; a couple of hours later she stepped out of the carriage with a couple of bags of groceries. She used a cell phone to arrange for the carriage to arrive; a courious mix of technologies.

Granada is not a huge impersonal place. I met a local a couple of days ago, we exchanged names, and as we parted I asked him to point me to a place where I could get my laundry done. There are only two in the whole of the old part of town and he directed me to ‘Lavanderia Mapache’ -The Racoon Cleaners. I returned to my house, collected my clothes and took off to find this Mapache. An hour later I walked into the little storefront of Mapache and an attractive young girl walked up and said ‘bienvenidos Fred’!

I suspect cell phones at work again.