UKC

I'm going to be in South Africa eight weeks in a place with no internet but adequate mobile phone coverage. Currently the cheapest options are buying a global sim which receives free calls and acts as a United Kingdom/Estonia/Liechtenstein number but these cost quite a lot to call from Germany and/or Skype. I will have a grand total of thirty minutes at the airport in SA before transferring so buying a local sim card is possible but signing up to a contract or getting a dongle (which seem rare in SA) is unlikely. There is no payphone where I will be going and I do not want to assume that I can receive phone calls on a local's landline. Does anyone know of any cheaper way to communicate between the countries? The cost will be split 50/50 anyway so whether I am sending or receiving calls in South Africa it doesn't matter. I can call both a mobile and a landline in German or be called from both - there are no cheap deals with any of the German telecom companies. If anyone has an idea that would be great!
Cheers,
Iain

In reply to Iggy_B:
Find a hotel where EVERYTHING is included in the price
Unfortunately this is what did for Frenchman's Cove in port antonio - jamaica. It was once the most luxurious hotel in the world, and was the honeymoon destination of choice for the British royal family, as once you payed to stay, anything you wanted to do was included. Unfortunately american business men realised this was a very cheap way to spend days solid on the phone to japan in luxury, and the place collapsed almost overnight

In reply to Iggy_B:

Are you landing at Jo'burg International? If so your 30 min window to connect to a transfer sounds incredibly tight to reclaim luggage and clear immigration. If you are getting an internal connection you will have to go through the immigration/customs process first. This normally takes me at least an hour. Can't you give yourself more time and book a later internal connection?

However if you did have a bit more time there is a shop at Arrivals (or there was last time I was there) where you can rent a cell phone for your stay. I don't know about Germany, but cell phone calls from SA to the UK are relatively cheap, and a lot cheaper than France or Spain to the UK.

In reply to Iggy_B:

I have an e-kit phone card. Helps cut costs and before each phone call tells you how many minutes you have so you know when it needs topping up.

http://www.ekit.com/ekit/About/PhonecardFeatures

In reply to Iggy_B:
pick up a local sim card, easy as pie
they sell them everywhere for about a pound

Thanks for the responses. I just think a local sim will cost a bomb to call from Germany. As for the connection it is a bus and as it will wait I don't think that's too much of a problem, they just might get annoyed if I spend thirty minutes signing up to a mobile phone. As I arrive on a Sunday at 6am I doubt anywhere is open anyway!
Cheers,
Iain