About a year ago, with the invaluable help of Romina, one of my familia, we went to the telecom office, Antel, and I now have a Uruguayan phone number. Pretty easy if one is fluent in Spanish LOL so I’m grateful to have had an interpreter with me.
I’d purchased the phone in the US through an online international outlet because my phone, on Verizon, isn’t GSM compatible, which is what I need here. Registered it with customs at the airport, took maybe 15 minutes at the Antel store to activate it, get the SIM card put in, buy some calls via prepago rather than a contract. I can switch to that later if I want.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a card and pin number I can use at most farmacias or tiendas anywhere to load more time.
Cost me 65 pesos to activate, no charge for the SIM, and I put 100 pesos of time\calls on it (not entirely sure how that works yet). That’s about $2.55 and $3.93 in USD, respectively.
Communication access is a priority here – uploading times for photos is about twice as fast as my turbo cable internet was in San Diego.
The phone seemed like a great idea – small, unobtrusive – but the screen is too small for me to read. Mistake, there. Finally got a new one and a contract with the help of Hebert, who lives in the city. My Spanish is good for routine things, but not for more complicated interactions.
Live and direct