Back to Los Algodones

When I saw the periodontist at the end of January, she noticed a place on my upper gums where they were inflamed over two teeth. She asked me to keep a watch on it and if it didn't clear up, to come back in a month. Well... since we were going to be leaving in a month, I decided I would go back in 3 weeks if it wasn't better... it was a little better, but not completely healed up, so I made an appointment to go back to see her today.

It is good to have a record of the area in the big parking lot where we have left the Jeep...

Ready to go into my dentist's office

There were no other people in the dentist's waiting room when I got there (when we went 3 weeks ago, there were 6-8 people in the waiting room). I got taken back pretty quickly, and Dr. Lilia took a look at my gums. She said that it was looking better, but gave me a prescription for a gel to put on twice a day for 1 week and then once a day for 1 additional week:

I took a picture of the prescription so I would have a record of the instructions just in case the pharmacy gave me a label in Spanish. As it turned out, they didn't give a labeled prescription at all, just the tube of medication in a box. (The instructions and information on the box are in Spanish.) They didn't take the prescription from me (so I guess I could get it filled again if I wanted to). I don't know whether this is based on the way the pharmacies work in Los Algodones - primarily giving medications to US folks who want to get the items at a cheaper rate than what they would pay in the US - or whether this is the way prescriptions are filled throughout Mexico.

Dwayne got a $3 haircut and met me back in the waiting room of the dentist. We decided that we didn't want to do any additional shopping, so headed to the exit line (or US border entry line).

Some pictures while in line...

All along the line there are folks selling things. A lot of people purchase from these folks so I guess it is worth their while to bring their wares to this location. These folks were hanging over the fence that separates the road from the pedestrian line - a lot of folks are right there within the pedestrian line area.

The yellow things that the guy is holding are rubber chickens with a plastic suction cup so you can hang it on a window. I am sure that there is someone who wants these, but I didn't see anyone purchasing from him while we were in line. The lady to the right has a selection of hats as well as bags she is selling. There were some guys who were putting hats onto various men in line trying to convince them to buy. I didn't see anyone purchase a hat either.

 There are also a number of ladies with little kids who are selling little things (like Chiclets gum or small ornament-type things), and also folks with various physical disabilities. They get a lot of contributions from the tourists in line.

Looking down one of the side streets - all those buildings are dental offices.

I was taking a picture of my dentist's office, but I also got a picture of the Mexican flag. Based on the way I took it, you can't tell, but the flag is flying at half mast. I rarely know why the US flag is at half mast when I happen to notice it, and have to google to find out... I googled to find out why the Mexican flag was at half mast, and Wikipedia told me that there are a number of days in the year when the Mexican flag is at half mast. Today it was to commemorate the death of Francisco I. Madero (a statesman and president of Mexico who was assassinated on 22 February in 1913).

Note: we got in the line for the border crossing at about 11:25am. It took us about 40 minutes to get across. When we got to the passport check point, there were only 2 guys on duty, but just as we were at the check point (right about noon), another guy came on duty, so there were 3 folks processing the lines. So... it may have been better to get into line more around noon or a little after as the line should have moved about 50% faster.

We went shopping at Walmart on our way back to the bus...

I saw "Chicken Paws" for sale, in fact, on special -- what a deal!!! Uhm, we didn't buy them... but... if we had gotten a rubber chicken to put on our car window, I'm not certain I could have passed up the opportunity to get "Chicken Paws" to go with the rubber chicken...

Just another fun day!