SIM Saga

We always get a local SIM card for our phones. We use Vodafone but we always have glitches. We are guessing that Vodafone does not pay well and doesn’t get the best employees. They don’t seem to know what they are doing.

We planned to get the “El País” (“your country”) deal, 15 euro for 6 GB and 600 minutes; they have four different pay-as-you-go plans. We get to the Vodafone store and he brings out the package and it says 2GB and 200 minutes. We point this out and he says it is really 8 GB and 800 minutes. Apparently the plan changes every month and the package was a few months old. He installs this one on Wynette’s phone and she gets a text message about it that looks good.

He starts on the plan for Charlie’s phone and runs into a problem. He gets another package and has another problem. Finally a third package works.

We ask how to find out how much data we have left. This is a puzzler. He asks another clerk and they try something but it doesn’t work, besides having a strange interface. We try the Vodafone app but that requires you sign up for a Vodafone account, give your passport number, etc., so we skip that.

We get back to the hotel and realize Charlie’s plan seems to be different and it sent different text messages so we decide to go back. We step outside the hotel and it is hailing/sleeting. See the next post for more on this.

After a scary walk in the hail we get there and get another clerk who consults yet another clerk and determines we do indeed have 8 GB but says that there is no way to find out how much data you have left at any given time in a pay-as-you-go plan. She says to go to a Vodafone store any time you want to find out. Strange.

But our phones work and we have 4G data speed and lots of call minutes.

Day 0, April 2-3, 2019: Albuquerque to Áviles

The trip from Albuquerque to Spain was not bad; no worse than you expect trying to sleep on a plane. Surprisingly the flight was not even close to full, maybe 75% full, unusual for this time of schedule optimization. Sure makes everything easier not being packed in so tight.

Last night at the hotel in Avilés, we managed to stay up until 10 pm but woke up again around 1:30 but got back to sleep and woke to our alarm at 8 am. We’re hoping we have our jet lag under control.

Addendum by Wynette: Above is Charlie in the Madrid Airport with our first café con leche of this trip. One of the best we’ve ever had.

Our Plan for This Camino

In Spring 2018 we walked the first half of the Camino del Norte from San Sebastián to (just before) Avilés. In 2019 we are going to continue walking along the north coast of Spain from Avilés to Ribadeo. From there we leave the Norte and go up along the coast from Ribadeo to Ferrol. This is a not very well known Camino called the Camino del Mar (or Camino do Mar in Galician). We liked the coast so much we wanted to see more of it.