Wednesday 4 November - Frigiliana Old Town & Nerja

Tooth was particularly bad this morning, so we decided to go back to the dentist in Nerja for another look and possibly an x-ray. I looked up the Spanish for x-ray just in case! We worked on our tans and lunched, then headed into town for 4pm when the first of the shops start to reopen. Yet another lovely day with clear skies, and 32 degrees on the car thermometer on the way in.

 

Found the dentist again OK, but they were in the middle of implanting teeth, so asked me to return around 5:30pm for a check. We used the time looking though more of Nerja's shops. It has a lot of interesting shops with a good range of wares. A lot of imported stuff – African, Indonesian and more, and most of it very well-priced. I found some nice jewellery for Karen, and then in the same shop a lovely small handbag on sale. We hummed and haa'ed a bit, got offered a discount and decided to take up the offer, before heading to the tooth factory.

 

Again, very pleasant and prompt service, this time with a white-coated man. He had another look, couldn't find anything visible so went on to taking an x-ray. This took only a minute or two to do, and showed precisely nothing other than a normal looking few teeth. His diagnosis was that I had developed surface sensitivity, and he gave me a prescription for some desensitising toothpaste, which we were able to collect at a nearby farmacia. I immediately rubbed some on in the hope it might start working. Total bill – just 20€. How can NZ dentists charge so much?

 

Talking things over with Karen, we have come to the conclusion that our travel toothbrushes may be the root of the problem. They were chosen as nice little ones that fitted well into the small pocket at the top of our toilet bag, but they are a bit harder than our home brushes. Karen had wondered if that was a problem, and had been (unbeknownst to me) deliberately brushing much more softly. Her tooth pain symptoms from France were remarkably similar to mine – pain with hot and cold, never quite in a defined location, throbbing rather than stabbing – and so we think the hard brushes have been too much for our teeth. Incredible that something so basic could cause such a problem.

 

Mentally I felt a whole lot more cheerful, having some kind of explanation, even if it still hurt like crazy at times.

 

Sandy & Lynette needed to confirm their RyanAir flights, so we did that in an internet café so they could print out the boarding passes. The manager's English sounded so like Juha, our Finnish Couchsurfer, that I asked if he was Finnish. Very close – Estonian.

 

On the way home, we all got a big load of groceries at a big supermarket, including a new set of soft (suave in Spanish) toothbrushes. We had decided it was time for a decent dinner out, so walked out from our home towards the old town. The place recommended by our hosts was closed, so we took one a little further along. Very cheerful and pleasant service. We all had the menu del dia starting with drinks. My anis was of Turkish proportions, being a wineglass with a couple of ice cubes topped ¾ full with anis.

 

Entrees were superb – garpacho, noodle soup and sausage soup, followed by squid rings, veal cutlets and veal kebabs. Simple food very well cooked and delicious. Even a nice dark chocolate mousse was included. We will probably come back here for another meal sometime.

 

Went to bed full of hope my teeth were on the mend, with the alarm set for an early daytrip departure for Granada.