Almerimar: Mark does some Health Tourism

Monday 28 November – Friday 09 December 2022

Monday morning saw our arrival at one of our favourite places in Spain: Almerimar.

As you can see, Almerimar is a little haven in a sea of plastic:

The region of Almería has about 78,000 acres of plastic greenhouses, growing huge amounts of fruit and veg. for the supermarkets of Europe. Large numbers of migrants cross illegally from Africa and are then exploited, working illegally for farmers and living in shanty towns. Not good.

All that seems a million miles away, though, from the marina in Almerimar. We’ve been here twice before, the last time being on our 2015-16 winter trip. The motorhome parking is right by the water, so we’ve got a view of the boats out of SOK’s windscreen.

Mark has decided that Almerimar is a “Baby Bear Town”- just right. It’s not too big and not too small. It’s pretty quiet given that we’re out of tourist season but it’s a town not just a resort so there’s still life in the place (with plenty of bars, shops etc open).

A few things have changed since we were last here. They’ve marked out bays now (previously it was a free-for-all) and are charging a fixed price including electricity of €15 a night. The very convenient launderette in the parade of shops nearest the van parking has gone, so it’s now a ten minute walk rather than a two minute walk to do your washing. Oh, the hardships….

Anyway, we arrived on Monday morning, wanting to make sure we got a space as it’s always been very busy here when we’ve visited in the past. Our first stop was to the Harbourmaster’s Office to pay for an initial three nights. Our second stop was at the practice of Antonio Nuñez, dentist…..

Yes, it’s another tooth story….. Mark has been dragging the saga out this time.

The tale started on the very day we left home (3 updates ago). We stopped to have some lunch and Mark reported hearing a loud crack. He wasn’t sure if it was a tooth or a seed in the bread he’d been eating. One tooth felt a bit tender but he couldn’t feel any bits missing.

As we were travelling down through France (2 updates ago), a corner dropped off one of Mark’s teeth. Being a bloke, he was still not particularly concerned.

Then, during our journey along the east coast of Spain (last update) he somehow managed to yank the (absolutely huge) filling out of the tooth whilst flossing round it. Left with three flimsy corners of a tooth and not much else, Mark accepted the inevitable: he was going to have to go to a dentist.

Luckily, we were only about 3 days from Almerimar at this point, and the dentist here got rave reviews the first year we were here; half the people on the motorhome aire seemed to be trotting up there to get themselves sorted out….

So off we went…. They gave Mark an appointment for 10am on Wednesday. Mark was very pleased; here he is holding his appointment card like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory….

We can skip over the rest of Monday and Tuesday. We jogged along the 2.5 mile long promenade out to the west of the town centre (twice), wandered to the local Mercadona supermarket, reacquainted ourselves with the town, and sat around enjoying the sunshine.

Wednesday morning arrived and Mark disappeared off to see the dentist. He reappeared an hour later and with his wallet €335 lighter. He needed a crown. They’d done the preparatory work there and then and sent off for the crown, which would take about a week to arrive. The dental surgery was apparently much more modern and technology-packed than Mark’s NHS surgery back home, so he was happy.

It was only later that we realised that there were two bank holidays in Spain the following week. We’ve filled the week and a bit since his dental appointment last Wednesday dossing: jogging along the prom., wandering to the shops, and walking out the the nature reserve on the far side of town to look at the flamingoes.

Today being Friday (so 9 days after Mark’s first dental appointment), we decided that it wouldn’t be unreasonable to pop round to the dentist to see if there was any news. No, it hadn’t arrived yet, they’d let us know when it did.

Barely half an hour later, as we were sat in the launderette directly across the road from the dentist, Mark received a WhatsApp message:

Yep, his “incrustación” had just arrived and he was to get himself over there pronto to have it fitted. Mark disappeared and came back about 45 minutes later with the job complete.

We’ve now learned lots about dentistry from looking up what an “incrustación” is: it’s a dental inlay/onlay/overlay. On asking Mark whether the dentist actually said he needed a crown, Mark says that’s not what he called it; he called it a “cap”. So Mark’s initial interpretation of “crown” was slightly misleading but the main thing is that it’s all done and the dentist is apparently very happy with it.

So, from thinking this morning that we may need to hang around in Almerimar for a while yet (for the required dental item to arrive and then get an appointment for it to be fitted), everything was suddenly all sorted at lunchtime today.

Our plan from here is to have one last evening in Almerimar, fill up with LPG and do a big food shop tomorrow morning, then drive about 115 km west along the coast to anther marina.