It was a beautiful sunny day so we decided to head to Algadones, Mexico. This is a food court area that also has some vendors. As far as I can tell, "Paraiso" means paradise. The vendors were very nice and not "in your face" pushing us to buy, buy, buy. I was also surprised to see that they all had about the same things for sale. 
I have heard about people coming here for dental work and eye glasses. You can get a crown for $164.00, and you know how much they cost at home. I was not prepared for what I saw. This is a typical street in Algadones. If you enlarge the picture you will see several signs advertising dental and optical offices. There are no stores. The vendors are on the sidewalks outside the medical offices.
Here is Ron on the other side of the street under Dr. Gomez' office. Looks like Veronica is a dentist and her father/brother/husband handles the optical side of the business. You can just barely see the purple sign that says "& Pharmacy Liqors". That is for "The Purple Store". It is very large and carries just about any medicine or alcohol that you could ever want or need. You can only bring back 1 bottle of alcohol a month.
As we were getting in line to cross the border back into California there was yet another opportunity to have dental work done. This time it's braces, but also look at the items for sale on the steps.
Here's another side street with more medical offices. I was told there are 250 dentists in this town. Amazing!
Now this dentist must be doing very well. It's a very nice building and there are no vendors on the sidewalk.
And here is our line to go through customs. Yes, it's was as bad as it looks. The line went down the hill, under the green awning and then around a corner before going into the customs building. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes. Did we have a grand adventure? Of course we did!
I have heard about people coming here for dental work and eye glasses. You can get a crown for $164.00, and you know how much they cost at home. I was not prepared for what I saw. This is a typical street in Algadones. If you enlarge the picture you will see several signs advertising dental and optical offices. There are no stores. The vendors are on the sidewalks outside the medical offices.
Here is Ron on the other side of the street under Dr. Gomez' office. Looks like Veronica is a dentist and her father/brother/husband handles the optical side of the business. You can just barely see the purple sign that says "& Pharmacy Liqors". That is for "The Purple Store". It is very large and carries just about any medicine or alcohol that you could ever want or need. You can only bring back 1 bottle of alcohol a month.
As we were getting in line to cross the border back into California there was yet another opportunity to have dental work done. This time it's braces, but also look at the items for sale on the steps. Here's another side street with more medical offices. I was told there are 250 dentists in this town. Amazing!Now this dentist must be doing very well. It's a very nice building and there are no vendors on the sidewalk. And here is our line to go through customs. Yes, it's was as bad as it looks. The line went down the hill, under the green awning and then around a corner before going into the customs building. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes. Did we have a grand adventure? Of course we did!
