Using a Telmex Payphone
Although there are few coin operated telephones situated around town, to make a call you'll mostly need to buy a far less troublesome Ladatel tarjeta telefonica (pronounced tar-hetta tel-eh-foh-knee-kah), which you can buy almost everywhere (newspaper stand, pharmacy, convenience store, dude in the street, etc.)
Tarjetas telefonicas (phone cards) come in denominations of 30 pesos, 50 pesos, 100 pesos, 200 pesos and 300 pesos. They used to sport some unique and interesting art, but most recently the powers that be figured out that they could make money by selling advertisements on them so now they're not quite as interesting. If you're going to be talking awhile, go with the largest denomination so that you don't have to try switching cards live because you'll probably hang up on yourself.
See Real Acapulco's instructions on how to use the a TELMEX street phone which should guide you through the myriad of cryptic buttons and our What do I need to dial to call...? section that will guide you through the labyrinth of numerical prefixes you'll need to have at the ready.
Real Acapulco Tip: When choosing a street telephone, try to get one as far away from the traffic as possible. Seriously, otherwise, fifty percent of your conversation will be comprised of words and phrases like: "what", "What was that?" , 'I couldn't hear you" "Could you repeat that?" and my personal favorite... "####ing bus"
It always seems to happen to me, as soon as I get to the interesting part of the conversation, a big bus drives by blaring its horn and kicks up a plume of diesel fumes right in my face. Yeah, good times.
What are all those buttons for?
You’ll know that you’re going native when you can do one thing… switching phone cards without hanging up on yourself. I’ve seen gringos go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, go around the world in a hot air balloon, light firecrackers in their butts and as well as many other such achievements of which we can all be proud, however I have yet to see a gringo successfully change phone cards without hanging up on themselves.
Well, Real Acapulco is here to change all that. In other words, you've come to the right place.
Operating a Public Telephone in Acapulco, Mexico
Well, you’ll know that you’re going native when you can do one thing… that is switching phone cards without hanging up on yourself. I’ve seen gringos go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, go around the world in a hot air balloon, swallow fifty goldfish in five minutes and many other stellar achievements, but I have yet to see a tourist successfully change phone cards without hanging up on themselves. Actually, I've never even seen it attempted.
When you're making a long distance call, being able to switch phone cards and performing other assorted phone-related operations is essential to your ability to manager the already somewhat strained communication situation where you cell probably doesn't work and you're hotel phone is God-awful expensive. So, that said, here is Real Acapulco's best attempt at showing everyone the ropes, which despite what the picture above might suggest, is not really as easy as 1,2,3...
The first button with the picture of a hand changing phone cards is the button you use to change phone cards. The key is to not wait until the card has run out of credit to try it, but to make the switch change before you run out.
The second button, with the picture of a telephoe receiver with soundcoming out of it and a little arrow pointing up is used for...
The third button, the one with the picture that of the finger pressing the buttons that with the letter RE, is Redial. If you need to dial the number you just marked again.
The fourth button with the two faces that say ABC is the language button. You can press this to change the language displayed in the digital display above.
The last button, with the telephone, is the button you press to revalidate the telephone card. This is useful because you don't have to hang up, remove the card, re-insert it, then pick up the receiver again.
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