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| That is Mexico, it's where we entered |
One of the attractions to Yuma is its proximity to Los Algodones Mexico. Los Algodones is a safe small town that houses hundreds of dentists, hundreds of eye glass shops & more pharmacies that I could count. Not many are fans of going to the dentist at anytime, so crossing an international border just to see the dentist is a big step.
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| Lots of pharmacies |
Our excursion into Mexico-
We parked on the American side of the border at the Quechan tribe parking lot ($6 for a car) and walked the 5 minutes across the border into Mexico.
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| The I-8 interchange and the parking lot. |
We had talked with several of the campers here & gotten a recommendation for a good dentist, Dr. Ana Guttierrez. With her name & address in hand we set out. There were a lot of people trying to guide us to another dentist or eye doctor or pharmacy. They all took "no thank you" as an answer and were willing to give us directions on where we were headed. Los Algodones is not a large place, so we were in Dr Guttierez's office in no time. Walk-ins are not a problem at most of these places.
My wife does not enjoy going to the dentist but she was more than comfortable with Dr Guttierez and felt she was very professional. It was a "better experience" than the last time she went to the dentist in Georgia.
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| A Mexican lunch, a pleasant interlude from all this dentist talk. |
After Dr Guttierez took the full set of x-rays & did an exam ($40) she saw that a periodontist was needed. A call was made and a nurse from the periodontist's office came by to give us a ride over. It was only a 5 min walk as it turned out, but the ride was a good thing.
Dr. Gomez looked at the x-rays, did an exam and explained the problem & possible solutions. He was a good communicator. The problem was bone loss, but the teeth could be saved with a bone graft. It's done chemically these days, instead of moving bone from one place to another. The periodontist deep cleans your teeth and sprinkles a bone growth agent around the roots. Then your body grows the bone back around the cleaned teeth.
Everybody we dealt with spoke English and I never felt unsafe.
After the plans were made for the bone graft we went to lunch. We stumbled into a courtyard restaurant, it was good!
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| The covered walk going back to the US |
Back to the USA... we headed down to where we came into Mexico & joined the line. It's a shaded area, well thought out with benches along the way. The line moved at a reasonable rate, the benches were not needed and the conversation was good (the lady next to me was from Saskatchewan Canada).
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| Here at the border they looked military, in town they were police. Other than waving us across the street to the line we had no interactions with any of the police in town. |
When we got inside I gave the customs guy my Passport, he scanned it and asked me why I'd been there, then allowed me to enter. It was actually a good feeling to be back.
A few days later we went back for the cleaning/graft, it all went well and we went home again. It was towards 1pm in the afternoon & the lines at the border were longer, but other than that it was the same.
The total cost was less than what was wanted for just a deep cleaning back in Georgia and we paid for it with US dollars.
