VISITING ALGODONES

When you live in Yuma, AZ it doesn't take much effort to be an international traveler. All it takes is a 20 minute drive west on Interstate 8 to the town of Algodones, Mexico. This little town is a mecca for the thousands of senior citizen winter visitors who use it like a day spa. The reason is that from the time you walk across the border you can find any number of important businesses: dentists, pharmacies, opticians, hearing aid stores, massage parlors, celation chambers, barber and beauty shops, and artists of all kinds. The two main drawing cards for seniors are the dentists (there are 300 of them) and pharmacies (probably a third as many). It's not hard to find a dentist. From the time you take a wandering path into the business district you are constantly being hailed with "You need a dentist". The prices are better than in the US and the work is done professionally even though some people might be turned off by the outward appearance of some offices. If you are looking on the office wall for references you need to read Spanish. The other places that the hustlers will try and steer you into are the pharmacies. The shops are so close together that it is easy to walk from one to another getting comparative prices for your drugs (make that medicine, drugs is a dirty word on the border). Frugal seniors will haggle over prices of only a few pennies difference. No prescription is needed but the employees will warn you about any compound requiring a prescription that might get you into trouble when re-entering the US. The well-versed medicine shopper would do well to know a little Spanish because most of the compounds offered are generic substitutes with ingredients and instructions in that language produced for the Latin America trade. The two major pharmacies, the Purple Pharmacy and the Yellow Pharmacy, face each other across the main plaza of Algodones.

If you are not interested in dentists or pharmacies you can sit in the plaza or on the sidewalk benches and watch life in a small Mexican town. It is a town in which tourists feel safe. One reason is that the town relies on tourist trade. That's also because, according to the Border Patrol, there is only one drug cartel in the area and therefore no killing among rivals. The plaza and the streets bordering it are crammed with vendors selling jewelry, watches, leather goods, all kinds of painted objects, clothing items, trinkets, etc. When walking through the area of metal art you will soon find out where your neighbor bought that ugly green frog in his front yard.

If all the activity makes you hungry you can stroll the streets deciding what appears to be the most sanitary place to have carne asada or fish tacos. If you have a sweet tooth you can try and find the bakery, with its selection of Mexican pastries, which is hidden among the many passageways which can remind one of the bazaars of Asia.

One certainty of a day of shopping in Algodones is the day you buy the four foot concrete butterfly is the day the line to get out of Mexico through U.S. Customs will be the longest in history. The seasoned Algodones shopper, particularly in the time of the winter visitor,  goes very early in the morning and gets out before the line forms. The thing also with the four foot concrete statue is that, once you get through the checkpoint, you still have almost a mile to walk to get back to your car parked in the lot controlled by the Quechan Indian tribe. It's either cough up $5.00 to park or walk a long distance up the road where you parked past the "No Parking" sign with the $300 fine.

Algodones is not all business however. The poster above promotes the big event coming up there next month. In case you don't read Spanish "Dia De Los Muertos" translates as "Day of the Dead". Even though this is a big annual day in Mexico I think I'll pass this year. I won't have to go buy drugs (make that medicine) in Algodones until the first of the year when I'll get out of the Medicare "donut hole."