Guinea eSIM

Yes, but prepare for it. French is the official language and Susu, Pular and Malinké are widely spoken; English mostly appears in larger Conakry hotels. Download the offline French pack before you fly and pre-write the sentences you will need — fares, destinations, where you want to be dropped off — so you are not depending on signal at the moment you need them.

Treat the hiking days as fully offline. Some highland villages have service, but the valleys and the trails down to the waterfalls usually do not. Save offline maps for the whole area, store your guide's number and meeting point before you set out, and leave an expected return time with your lodging, because re-arranging a rendezvous mid-route without data is genuinely hard.

Not very far. Shops, shared transport and small guesthouses run on cash in Guinean francs, and cards work mainly at a handful of larger Conakry hotels. ATMs exist in the capital and bigger towns but are unreliable, so draw what you need before heading upcountry and keep your booking details saved offline in case you lose data at the wrong moment.

Most plans here start when the phone first connects to a network at the destination, so you can install in advance at home and switch it on after landing. Each plan page states its own rule.

No. The eSIM is a second line, so you keep your home number for SMS OTP. Turn off roaming data on the home line and set the eSIM as the data line.