Roam: Orthodontist, road to Fortuna, Liberia & beach!

Playa Hermosa

While Nik was back in the US (work trip #4), Madeleine had her first orthodontist appointment. The orthodontist comes to Nuevo Arenal once a month, one day near the end of the month and sees patients at the dentist’s office in town. Nik had talked to the dentist to get an appointment for Madeleine, and the dentist was going to call me when she knew what day the orthodontist was going to come. The last Saturday of September, I got a call from her on my cell phone while the kids and I were walking down to (what we call) the waterfront park, on Lake Arenal. The dentist asked if Madeleine could come today, in an hour. Short notice, but the timing was perfect! We continued our walk, explored a bit at the park, then walked back into town for the appointment. The orthodontist agreed that Madeleine needed braces and told me that we needed to get some imaging and dental molds done, at one of a few radiologic centers in nearby towns. We chose the closest town, La Fortuna, and got the info to call for an appointment. The orthodontist also reviewed for us the 3 payment options for braces, which the dentist kindly wrote down for me. If we were to pay in full at the next appointment, the total cost would be $1160. For 24 months. Hello medical tourism!

I proudly made an appointment (over the phone in Spanish) in La Fortuna for one afternoon that next week when the kids did not have school due to teacher meetings (a frequent occurrence). We set out for La Fortuna on a road that we have traveled many times. It winds along Lake Arenal, and sometimes you can catch glimpses of Volcan Arenal at the other end of the lake. The views are lovely, as is the jungle and steep hillsides that the road winds through. We'd had a LOT of rain lately, and I had heard that the road had been closed recently for mudslides. We saw many small slides that had been cleared. Then we came across a couple of large slides that were mostly cleared, that we could pass. Then we crossed an impressive slide that had turned the road into a muddy river. There was a backhoe working to clear the road, but I was able to sneak past with only a brief moment of panic that we were going to get stuck. Thank you 4WD. Then we came to a spot with several trucks parked and workers relaxing for lunch. One worker waved energetically, as in “go back”. It turned out that we could not go any further. The road was officially closed due to two large slides that we were not able to see around a curve ahead in the road. This was only about 10km from Nuevo Arenal. So we drove back and called to cancel our appointment in La Fortuna.

Road to La Fortuna, normally a nice 2-lane road.

Road or waterfall?

Yikes!

We planned to go to the beach the next day, so it occurred to me that we could try to get Madeleine an appointment in Liberia that would be right on our way to the beach. The prospect of trying to get to La Fortuna in the next week or two was not inviting. We are at the height of the rainy season right now, so I did not think the road was going to improve any time soon, and closures would probably be very common until things start to dry out in December. After some comical miscommunication with the dentist over the phone, we were able to pick up a new order sheet from her and get an appointment in Liberia for Friday morning. We got an early start and made the 1.5 hour drive to Liberia with no mudslides to slow us down. We did try to take our regular shortcut that bypasses Tilaran, goes up and over a ridge past many wind turbines and saves about 20 minutes. But a short way up the craggy road, there was a large truck stuck and we could not pass. So we backed down (thanks again 4WD) and took the longer paved route through Tilaran.

The directions I got over the phone from the woman at the radiologic center did not seem to match the directions from the dentist that were printed at the bottom of the order sheet. We had plenty of time, and we spent it driving around Liberia looking for the hospital that was supposed to be easy to find and the center that was supposed to be across the street from the hospital. After failing to find the hospital, we came across the MaxiPali store that the woman at the radiologic center had used as a landmark in the directions she gave me. So this time, we followed her directions. When we got to the point where the center was meant to be, it looked at first like a residential street and I assumed we were in the wrong place. Eagle-eyed Madeleine fortunately spotted the small sign for the center as we drove past. We had found it, and were even 15 minutes early. Amazing! The appointment was quick and easy and only cost $80 for panoramic X-ray, photos and dental molds.

We found it: el centro radiologico

After that we headed for Playa Hermosa to spend a night at Hotel El Velero where had stayed back in March. We enjoyed the beach and the hotel’s pool very much. We must have spent hours bobbing around in the warm surf. So lovely!