An adventure in dental tourism

I receive a “stunning” invoice from the Carson Valley Medical Center. It is a bill for $20,000. It isn’t until I see that $294 is the adjusted amount that I recover. I have lived through several situations such as this in my later years and am so grateful I have good health insurance. Regarding dental work, it’s another matter. When it is time for dentures, I find a dentist on the internet in Tecate, Mexico. It involves a long drive, but Orllyene and I have ample time and I like to drive so, off we go. The Interstate past Lake Elsinore and San Diego are a chore, but we eventually wend our way onto a web of country roads. Pepper trees, palms and citrus groves replace suburbia, and we enter a panorama of jagged hills, and trees hundreds of years old. Small homes give way to properties that call themselves “rancheros.” California can be paradise with its sublime weather.

At one point we pass an Immigration Check Point. Immigration Department cars sit silently waiting for a border crossing infraction. The road narrows and hugs the mountain, dips and climbs and repeats its reptilian meandering when an 18-wheeler suddenly appears and tests my driving reflexes. My mind shifts to the matter of getting across the border. On a direct telephone call to the Tecate border crossing I was promised that all we needed was a current driver’s license. In Tijuana, we would need passports. It wasn’t the getting into Mexico that I was worried about; it was getting back into the States.

An inconspicuous road sign snaps me out of my torpor — Tecate 6 miles, and I turn. This is an even smaller road. The sun is a dazzlingly bright and on a billboard are advised to leave our car in a parking lot and walk across the border. A disinterested gentlemen asks the purpose of our trip and I tell him we have a 1 pm appointment with at Dr. Ortega’s 0ffice and he obligingly gives us walking directions to his office. The streets are cobbled, sidewalks cracked, and I feel very comfortable being back again in Mexico. After I check in with the receptionist, I ask if there a café close by, and Dr. Ortega hears my question and says it is National Tamale day in Mexico and he and his staff are having lunch upstairs together and asked if we would care to join them. We accept. The homemade tamales are delicious. After lunch x-rays are taken, a mold of both upper and lower areas of my mouth are made and I’m told to return in two days when my new dentures will be ready. It seems, Dr. Ortega is an artist and has showings of his work in Mexico City and has written a book. I confess that I too have written a book and we exchange books. I feel we are more like friends than doctor and patient.

In two days, we return, the dentures fit beautifully, I pay the bill, which is substantially less costly than at home and the drive along the squiggly road to Tecate is no less captivating. It has been a good adventure.

Ron Walker can be reached at walkover@gmx.com