Costa Rica Part 4

Costa Rica, Part 4

On Monday morning, Phil talked to the young woman at the desk at Cala Lodge about making a dental appointment.  She got him an 11:00 AM appointment, arranged for a cab, and even negotiated the fare with the cab driver. The “cab” turned out to be a battered pick-up truck driven by a young man in his twenties.  He spoke some English.

The dentist’s office was in a strip mall, less than a mile from the lodge.  The driver dropped us off,  handed us his business card and drove away.  We tried the door of the office. It was locked.  Oh, no! Now what? Then we realized we were early.  It was only 10:45. Before long, a young, a very young man, appeared and unlocked the door. This was our dentist.

His English was excellent. He told Phil that the tooth was infected. He said he would prescribe a week’s worth of antibiotics, plus 3 packets of medicine for the pain. Phil was to use one packet per day for the next three days.  Most importantly, he was to call his dentist as soon as he returned to the United States.  Phil had worried all night that the dentist might pull the tooth. “You don’t pull an infected tooth,” the dentist replied, in answer to his question. “That would only spread the infection. You have to clear up the infection first.”  The visit cost $50.

We walked to a nearby "pharmacia" to fill the prescriptions. Then we stopped at a “soda” (housed in a kiosk) for a traditional Costa Rican lunch of chicken, salad, rice and beans. After returning to the hotel, we took naps. In retrospect, Phil thought he probably should have waited until bedtime to take the pain medicine, but the prospect of immediate relief was just too tempting. He later said it was the best nap he ever had.

More adventures were to come the next few days—a visit to a butterfly garden, a tour of a small coffee farm, a “Sky Walk,” and a night walk.  I have to postpone writing about them because of “Horror # 3,” which reared its ugly head just before we left for Costa Rica and was waiting for us when we got back.  We could no longer log on to “online banking” at our credit union, and worse, no one at the credit union seemed to know how to fix it.  As a certified control freak who likes to monitor her online accounts every day, I felt anxious, agitated and annoyed. We hoped, by the time we got back, that the problem would have quietly resolved itself, but no.  We still couldn’t log on! Turns out, the operating systems on both our big ol’ creaking Mac and our cute li’l Mac laptop were ancient, so we took the laptop to the Apple Store, had an updated operating system installed, and voila!   We were soon back on line with the credit union, However, a myriad of teensy-weensy new problems cropped up.  AOL didn't know me. FaceBook didn't know me. Even the credit union insisted it had to verify my identity before letting me see my account. AND I could no longer access my photos. Apparently “iPhoto” died some years ago without saying good-bye and there was a new kid on the block:  “Photos.”  Please bear with me.