Phoning Canada from Paraguay
 

We have found that the local calling cards we usually use to call home from distant lands will not work in Paraguay. Where would we buy a long distance calling card in Paraguay?

Paraguay has its own microchip phone cards that can be used in public phones. You can buy them in shops. The largest value card is worth about U.S.$2, so I doubt you'll get a very long call out of it.

Thanks. A friend has family members going there and she just wants them to call home to let her know they have arrived safely. They are not staying in a hotel, so that is not an option. They don't speak Spanish so she is woried that they will not be able to read the instructions on a pay phone to call and reverse the charges.

Do they have a Canadian telephone calling card? Most countries, including Paraguay, have a Canada Direct access number that lets you place a call back to Canada in English or French through an operator in Canada, and have the cost of the call charged to your card.

www.infocanadadirect.com

They do list an access number for Paraguay. I'd go that route.

D'uh! Where did I get the impression this was Canada? Never mind what I just said. But, the same principle applies with AT&T, Sprint or MCI. Paraguay has local access numbers for those companies, and you can place a call through a U.S.-based operator and have it charged to your bill or card back home.

Jeff you are correct. They will be calling home to Canada. The mother checked our local telephone system, the one for which she has a calling card. I have used the same calling card to call from several countries in Europe. She was told that it could not be used from Paraguay. I will check out the infocanadadirect.comsite for her. Thank you.

Just checked infocanadadirect and zaptel. No service from Paraguay to Manitoba.

If they have a cellphone, they can send a text message to another cellphone.

I'm very cautious about cellphones in other countries, though, and I disabled my voicemail before I went to Argentina, because if someone calls through to your voicemail you can be charged at the very high roaming rate even if that person is local and if you don't access your voicemail. But it's also possible they could spend $3 or $5 for a very brief call home via cellphone.

Are they going to be in a city? In Buenos Aires, they have cabanas inside small stores where you can go and make phone calls for a small fee. I wonder if this same option exists in Paraguay.

Another possibility: your friend in Manitoba could perhaps phone the place where your friends are staying. It's very cheap to get phone cards in Canada for phoning abroad.

They are going with a church group to do mission work and will be staying in dorms somewhere.

Somebody told me that Bell International prepaid calling cards might work.

Keeping fingers crossed.