like pulling teeth

I'm pretty sure that where we left off I was planning on heading into the jungle to see some monkeys the next day. As I was preparing for my trek into the unknown I decided to fortify my caloric intake with some Cool Ranch Doritos. I'm not a huge junk food guy but occasionally I like to slum it with some Doritos. So I was holed up in my room, just chilling out, eating some chips when I feel a big chunk of one of my teeth fall out. Yep, I am not kidding, about 20% of one of my lower molars just popped out. No pain, no warning, just came out like it was totally normal. I wish I could say was teaching the locals about the subtlties of street hockey cross checking or maybe breaking in my new machette against a wild puma, but no, just eating tortilla chips. Needless to say I was freaking out, not only because my tooth fell out but because I was in absolutely no pain and to be honest, after 20% of your tooth fell out, wouldn't you think you'd be in pain? This side note kinda freaked me out a little more. I have to admit I was not having an easy time falling asleep later that night. I got up early in the morning and made my way to a computer machine and started thinking about getting a flight back home. For laughs I did a google search about dental care in Central America and wouldn't ya know it, Costa Rica is getting pretty well known for high quality dental care with up to 75% lower costs. Most of the doctors are educated in America but practice in Costa Rica where the cost of living is sizably cheaper (I feel like a late night infomercial guy right now). I can only imagine that the Costa Ricans (Ticos) have not mastered the art of sueing in the way we Americans have, so liabity insurance has to be loads cheaper as well. So Sunday I made my way down from the mountains in to the lowlands of Managua, Nicaragua. Most international routes depart from Managua and I purchased a ticket for the following morning on a bus bound for San Jose. At this point I have to talk a little about Managua. Managua is a dump! The people I ran into were very nice, but there is tons of crime here. When I got out of the taxi near the bus station, I bought my ticket for the next days bus. As I exited the small terminal the local crackhead named Harold (who reminded me of Bubbles from The Wire) asked me if he could lead me to a hotel for a small donation of change, if I could afford it. Given, my hotel was only four doors down, but I didn't want to get stabbed so I agreed to let Crackhead Howard lead me four dours down, besides I was feeling generous and if you have seen The Wire you know that Bubbles is a good kid who has gotten into bad things, not violent, just lost. And Howard couldn't have been his real name, by the way, I mean how many Howard's have you heard of who are Latino? This was a first for me. The hotel was actually a house that also had some rooms and the people were very nice but apparently very concerned for my safety because they locked me in the house as soon as I entered. I decided to get a really late lunch and go to bed early to prepare myself for the 9 hour bus ride the following day. As I headed out into the wild Managuan concrete jungle, the owners of the hotel told me not to walk to the right, but head left and a good place was about 3 blocks away. This was 4 in the p.m. mind you. As I passed the bus station I gave ol' Crackhead Howard a few coins in my pocket and thanked him for his guide work. He thanked me and suggested that I don't go right or straight, as bad people lived down those streets. With wide eyes I asked him if it was OK to go left, which was putting me off my track in a fast way. He asked what I wanted, I told him food. He told me to go into the house that was right next to the bus terminal, only 3 doors from my hotel. He yelled at the lady who owned the house and she came out and let me into her breezeway area and gave me a menu. It seems that the locals provide a few basic services for bus travelers. As soon as I entered the breezeway she locked me in. I was beginning to wonder. Now, I might be a little naive in big city situations (I got a city guy named Rob that does all my city stuff for me) but I was beginning to think that this was not all that safe of a place! Feeling pretty good at my sloth like city reflexes/intuition I ate a delicious plate of chicken and mango coconut curry. I was shocked at how good everything was! When I finished, the nice lady unlocked the door for me, let me go and promptly locked me out. The sun had still to go down and I felt like I was in The Nam. I think the moral of this part of the story is don't go to Managua. I was loving Nicaragua before this, and will definitely make my way back up here but i'm gonna do everything I can to stay out of Managua in the future. An hour after this I was getting thirsty and wanted to buy a 2 liter bottle of water. The local store was a house that was two doors down from my hotel, so as the sun was setting I bought a 2 liter bottle of water holding my machette. I'm not kidding! Even Crackhead Howard saw me and hot stepped it to the other side of the street. When I retune to the hotel and the door was locked behind me once again, I decided to not tempt fate and I stayed in the hotel for the rest of the night. I have been bookless for almost a week now so I watched Nicaraguan cable, which was suprisingly delightful. The next morning I got to my bus and took off with a painfully raw tongue from french kissing the sharp edges of a tooth that there a mere 36 hours prior. The trip was long, but I had heard back from a few Dentists offices via email and was hopeful about getting this problem taken care of. Tuesday morning I hit up the US Embassy to see if they could recommend a dentist or help me in any way. They were suprisingly unhelpful, but a 60ish expatriate British/American citizen helped me out a bit. He heard me talking to the Embassy official and offered to drive me to his dentist who he gave rave reviews on. We took off, had a great conversation along the way about how good the British were at colonizing (he did most of the talking) and got to his dentist but they were quite busy. He was nice enough to come out in to the lobby and do a quick peek in my mouth but could not tell me anything until he could evaluate me fully, which couldn't happen until next week. Obviously I could not wait this long and called one of the people who had gotten back to me via email. I did a little research and the Dr graduated from UCLA med school and was highly touted on random past client testimonials. I went in for a consultation later in the afternoon and felt very comfortable with the professionalism of his staff, the entire office, and most importantly, the good doctor himself. He took some pictures, did some x-rays and gave me his diagnosis. Root Canal, OUCH! Good thing was he said we could do the prep work that day and do the actual procedure on Thursday. The estimate was also quite a bit lower than I expected although a random tooth falling out after eating Cool Ranch Doritos is a first for me so what do I know?! So, off I head to the dentist... in Central America... where I don't know a soul.... man, this doesn't sound good, does it? I suppose I can chalk this up to life experience.