Once I had started in Africa, my guide Julius said it was really easy to get a Kenyan sim card and a lot cheaper so he helped me in my first purchase of a Kenyan sim. The downside to using the African sim cards was that they all didn’t work in each other’s country. So each time we entered a new country I would purchase a new sim card. This was definitely more cost effective then the UK sim and also the Australian sim; it was just an inconvenience for the people receiving my texts from yet another new number. Most times we were in countries for 2 weeks so it was worth-while to do and certainly a lot cheaper for me. The process of recharging these cards was also really easy, you purchased credit from authorized sellers and then imputed the confirmation number into your phone and it was done. I was surprised it was so easy and 99% of the time I didn’t have an issue in Africa. The main issue was reception in some areas which you would expect, but even that was surprisingly more than I ever thought I would get. It was in Africa that I lost my Australian sim, but this wasn’t a huge drama as I still had money on my UK sim but I still have no idea where it got to or where I actually lost it…
South America was another kettle of fish. I tried an Ecuador sim card and had issues straight away and when I tried the Peru sim I also had issues. The phone people in Pisco said it could be my Blackberry, so I bought a 20AUD phone and once we worked out what the exit code was for Peru I had no problems getting messages out. But I was back to an analogue phone, you know press a key 3 times to get a single letter type jobs, but I could use it and my messages were getting out so no complaints for me. These issues continued through all the South America countries and it was a pain in the arse 90% of the time. Mark was super patient every time we changed countries to come with me to translate the purchase of new sim cards and to get all the exit codes to send a message. Some worked and some didn’t, but when the sims were only costing me a couple of dollars it wasn’t too bad if they didn’t end up working for whatever reason. Who would ever have thought that Africa would have an easier communications network than South America. I am lucky that I had a British couple on the first 2 segments of South America that I could give them cash and they would use their credit card to top up my account.
By this time I was getting a grand old collection of sim cards and upon my return to Ethiopia I was able to use the card I had purchased 4 months prior. The Ethiopian network is not the best. There is only one company, government owned, and the signal and reliability in the country is not the best. Text would be sent and not received, call drop outs and messages about phone disconnections but when you tried back 2 minutes later you were connected. There really is no advantage to having a smart phone in Ethiopia, but I am a Blackberry gal through and through and I just had to get another one to replace the one that was lost/stolen in Chicago. It was here that somehow I lost the pouch that had all my sim cards in it, including my UK sim that I had just topped up with 50AUD before leaving Rio. Dang it, so as I left Ethiopia I now had no sim cards what so ever and no card that would work. This panicked me and I was really worried that I would have no communication options as I headed back into South America for the last 6 weeks. When I landed in Frankfurt I managed to find a travel sim in the electronic store at the international airport as I had a 3 hour transit there, so by the time I landed back in Brazil I had one working phone again.
This sufficed me all the way round the top of South America, Easter Island, Barbados, Canada and the US till my phone was lost/stolen in Chicago. Which the timing was crap again as I had just added 30EUR to my account the day before. So I had to then purchase a new phone in the US with a sim card and went for a cheapie phone of 70AUD and a 30AUD plan which gave me free data and free text messages in the US it was a great backup plan to get me through the last 5 weeks in the US.
My arrival back into OZ I had to get yet another phone, as the US phone was locked to AT&T. I wanted to get a new Blackberry and after shopping around they seemed quite hard to even get your hands on one and when you could to buy the phone out right was going to cost 700AUD. Not even I could justify 700 bucks for a phone. So I settled for a 99AUD phone on a prepaid plan that was unlocked but I missed my Blackberry. So while I was on EBay one afternoon I just checked the cost of the new Blackberry and I found one for 268AUD from Hong Kong and it included the postage. It was unlocked, brand new and in original package so I couldn’t resist and it arrived this week. It works fine and I now have my Telstra prepaid sim in my spanking new BLACKBERRY. So I am not caught in the position I was in before I am going to purchase another one or two Australian sims and then get one in the UK before I leave for Ethiopia. I’m just going to make sure the sim I purchase in London will be a company where I can top up on line. It is a shame that Vodafone don’t let foreign credit cards top up as I was really happy with the service and coverage I got with them. Oh well I am sure that there are more companies that will do the same thing. In Australia Optus seemed to have a great prepaid deal where you pay 29.95 for the sim and that includes 300AUD of calls and text messages. Normally these plans don’t include international anything but this plan does. The text messages are 3AUD a pop which is super expensive, but when you have a 300 buck credit you are still getting 100 texts for free. So I will definitely be getting that sim to take with me.
So that is the pros and woes of my phone and travel sim cards. I am heading in a little more travel savvy this time around and as with my money matters having a few spare cards for backup now makes sense and I am not sure why I didn’t think about it before hand on my first Odyssey.
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