email access on the Camino

[bill deutschman]

Two years ago all of the large cities, Pamplona, Leon, Burgos, Santiago as well
as Najera, and several small towns that I've forgotten had internet cafes.  The
problem for us was that some didn't open until 8 or later and closed at 2 am.
 I suspect that there are more now.  Many of the connections were SLOW!!!  I
think they had one line for all of the computers.  We were able to send
messages as soon as we arrived and then go back the next afternoon and get
replies.  Remember, 6 PM in Spain is 9AM in the Pacific time zone so sometimes
we got instant replies from people that monitored their mail in the morning.

Don't know about Palm connections as we did not find any cafes that allowed us
to connect anything to their computers, just use them.  BTW, the
French and Spanish keyboards are different from the US ones.  Don't remember
which keys changed now but it was a real problem in France.  I finally sent a
correspondence table to me friends and told them to spell check and then change
the letters.  I then just touched typed as if it were a US key board.

Hope this helps.  I can look at my records and try to give you a complete list
of the cities were we found internet access.

Bill

bill deutschman
455 hillside avenue
klamath falls, or 97601
olcbillafireserve.net


-----Original Message-----
From:   Ellen Grunblatt [SMTP:aplsosaMAINEWEST.COM]
Sent:   Sunday, February 10, 2002 5:04 PM
To:     GOCAMINOaPETE.URI.EDU
Subject:        email access on the Camino

Hello--I'm a new subscriber from Maine.  I'm planning to walk the Camino for
6 weeks beginning at the end of March.  I'm trying to figure out ways to
stay in touch with home, and was wondering if anyone had successfully used
email on any kind of regular basis while they walked.  Specifically I'm
wondering if there are any cybercafes in the larger cities, or if anyone has
used a Palm w/modem to stay in contact state-side, or any other suggestions
people might have.  You  can reply to me personally at aplsosamainewest.com,
though I can't believe I'm the only one with this question.  (tried
researching the archives w/o success).  Thanks for any help or advice with
this.

Ellen