Yuma & Los Algodones

Right across the border as you enter Mexico.

We stopped for a few days at an Escapee rv park in Yuma to clean up after our Slab City stay and to go to the dentist in Los Algodones. This is a real popular thing to do with the retirees - with health care costs so high and with insurance being what it is, many people opt to go down to Mexico for their dental care. We are not quite "retirees" YET, but we are now among the many Americans that no longer have dental insurance. Quite a few of the dentists are American trained and as long as you get a good referral I think it's a pretty safe thing to do. With that being said, all we were going down for were cleaning appointments. We got a great referral from Jenn while we were at Slab City so we made an appointment and drove the 20 minutes to the big parking lot right at the border.  As soon as you walk across the border you are slammed with hawkers asking you if you need dental care and/or prescriptions.  Every storefront is either a dental office, pharmacy, liquor store or souvenir shop. We checked out the price of our favorite tequila, Clase Azul, & it was a little less expensive but not much. It was a very clean city & we didn't feel nervous at all walking around. Our cleaning visits were great, I was very happy that they used the ultrasound machines, and we each got a little bag with all the requisite dental stuff you normally get at your dentist. Not exactly sure if I would go down there for major stuff, but then it probably would depend on how much it costs and where we were financially at the time.

El Paraiso

I had done a bit of research on eating down there so first in order were refreshments at El Paraiso! The sun was shining and the band was playing American tunes for all of the snowbirders, it was a bit bizarre...I would have so loved to listen to music from the area. We moved on to a cute little place for lunch which was more in the center of town, away from the border, and had a great meal. 

Alfresco lunch stop with more American music!

The sun was shining and the entire town was walk-able. It was quite a wait to get back into the US and Jenn told me later that they usually ride their bikes in and lock them up at the dental office and when they leave they can drive through with the cars and avoid the wait - very good tip!! 
Twenty minutes later we were back at our campground only to find out that Sini and Bob were heading toward us for an overnight stay! They brought steaks and we baptized their newly purchased grill, it was fun catching up with them again & we expect to do so, here and there, on our trip eastward.