A visit to Molar City

I am what you might call an American homebody. Though I have visited forty-seven states and plan to visit the remaining three -- Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota, I know where you live -- I have ventured beyond the borders of the United States only nine times.

On all but one occasion, I made a short trip, a day trip, to Victoria or Vancouver, Canada. My exotic world travels were limited to two cities in British Columbia.

This week, I branched out and added a country. I visited Los Algodones, Mexico, a postage stamp of a town tucked in the far northeast corner of Baja California. Located about ten miles west of Yuma, Arizona, just south of Interstate 8, it is one of the most accessible and interesting communities on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Known as Molar City, Algodones has one of the highest concentrations of dentists in the world. More than 350 dentists operate in the town of 5,000 people, as well as numerous plastic surgeons, optometrists, and pharmacies. One cannot walk ten feet in the city's downtown without seeing a sign, a building, or a person touting dental services.

Though I passed up a molar extraction and root canal on this visit, I did not pass up many of the shops, restaurants, and cantinas. When in Rome, you order authentic beef tacos and milkshake-sized margaritas and give the street vendors' shiny wares a second look.

I hope to return to this little corner of Mexico sometime when the temperature is below 110 degrees and the city, which had largely shut down for the summer, puts on its winter face. Until then, there are more places to visit and bucket-list items to check.