It is day 29 since we bought our SIM cards for our phones. How do I know this?
They quit working.
The normalSIM card contract last for 4 weeks. However, Orange had a plan that lasted 8 weeks, perfect for our extended stay. But, this the age of cell phones and the phone companies try to rip you off at every turn. Usually it is in omission of details like hidden charges, or features turned on for a surcharge you didn’t want. It appears this is an omissions event.
Our first city on today’s walk is Ponferrada. It is a bigger city with a cool landmark. One of the old Knight Templar castles still stands and is right on the route. The total milage for today is 14 miles. Sally wants to shorten that a bit and we called for a taxi to pick her up at 9:40am and drop her at the castle. It opens at ten, exactly when she will get dropped off. Becky and I are walking the 4.7 miles, so we need to allow about two hours to walk it so we can meet Sally there.
It is at breakfast around 7:00am that we discover our phones are on longer working. There are some texts in Spanish which we translate, but even with the translation we can’t make out what they mean. We use WiFi calling to call Orange, but they don’t open until 9:00. We go I to old fashioned mode. We make backup plans, contingencies to follow incase we don’t meet up at the castle.
Becky isn’t ready to go at 8:00am and neither am I as we spent too much time working the phone issue. I leave at 8:15 am, Becky is not ready yet and leaves a bit later. So much for the Castle at 10:00am.
I listen to Cryptonomicon as I hustle along, watching the time tick down to 9:00am when Orange opens. I call, wait on hold for the predicable amount of time (10 min) and then get a agent. She informs me I must pay €10 to reactivate my plan. I insist this is not what I signed up for but she tells me that is what iI must do. She has me over a barrel. I have to have phone service. Sally is at the albergues, soon to be in a taxi, Becky is on route somewhere behind me. We need to be able to communicate or we might get separated and not know how to reconnect like before. I agree to the €10 per phone charge. She says she cannot help me, but any gas station or grocery store can. Really? Any? I hang up after this 25 minute call and pass a Repsol gas station. I ask one of the clerks I’d they can recharge my phone. No. He is kind and helps me find the closest Orange store in town. Back on the street I am heading for the castle when I see a small food store off to my left. I duck in. No one there, just a clerk behind the counter.
“Do you speak English”.
“Yes”.
“ Can I recharge my Orange SiM here with you.”
“Yes”
Really? All three cards? “Yes”
Boom! Just like that all three phones work again. Boom! Just like that I am €30 poorer.
I call Sally and she picks up! All working again. I call Becky. Nothing. Try again. Nothing. Try again five minutes later. Boom. She is online too. She says she worked with a Spanish speaking pilgrim to call Orange while they walk. Unlike my agent, Becky’s says there has been an error and she should have full service back with no fee! Phone companies. No bigger crooks. To top it off, the Castle is closed on Mondays. Had we done our due diligence we would have discovered that last night and could have left much earlier. (Note to self-do your research.)
We stopped in a bank in downtown Ponferrada to break some €100 bills that businesses would not take, then we walked the Camino as it skirts Ponferrada and headed for the three “C” towns. Their names are hard to remember, except that they begin with C and are sequential on the route, so we call the C1, C1 and C3.
About two miles before C2 Sally looked up at the beautiful mountains surrounding the town, stepped on the broken edge os the blacktop on the edge of the road, rolled her ankle and tumbled to the ground. She lay there looking like she was in pain. We gave her a minute or so to recover and run some internal diagnostics to see what was broken and what had survived the crash. She reported that she thought she felt alright. Some Aussies had arrived on the scene. No one on the Camino can handle a 68 year old woman lying on the ground, so they helped her to stand. She reported she felt okay and off we went, thanking them for their concern and help. Over the next two miles Sally reported increasing pain in her left foot, the one she rolled. At C2 we decided walking the additional 4 miles to C3 was not wise. We were just dialing to call a taxi when one pulled up and three pilgrims started putting their packs in the trunk. They were found to C3 as well and were glad to give Sally a lift. Total elapsed time from decision to take a taxi to seated in the taxi? Less than a minute.
Becky and I continued onto to C3 arriving about an hour later. Sally was in a bar with her foot up on a chair, smothered in ice.
We worked our way down to our hotel and let ourselves in. I made a quick run to the grocery for some food and more ice. We went out to eat in the adjoining square and then called it a night. Becky’s shin splints and hips are hurting her everyday. Now Sally has a sore ankle and foot. Sally iced 20 on 20 off until time to sleep. We will see how her foot does tomorrow.
Becky at the Knights Templar Castle in Ponferrada
Becky and Sally on the route walk through an old hospital for pilgrims back in the day.
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