Sun 2315 Quietly cheesed off, though not an entirely bad day. Not really in mood to write this but I'll do what I can. Final day of VdN tour likely to have to wait.
Got up OKish and had breakfast at hostel, stuffed everything in my bag (bit bloated due to eg big stack of napkins I bought as cheap-and-smaller toilet paper alternative for hike and some leftover carrots and a couple of empty plastic water bottles I wasn't sure about throwing away), walked over to MS office no trouble (hardly anyone on street), paid on credit card, "luckily" asked if I was meant to go out to the bus without being told after waiting inside 10-15 mins (I had assumed someone would come into the small office and say) and got a half-decent solo seat on bus (tho first one I tried had zero leg room even for me, I had to splay legs out as if I were pillion passenger on a bike).
Bus filled up as we went on, and was somehow pleased to note (also pleased to understand, but that's a separate point) some presumably-Colombian passengers asking if it was door to door and asking about where to get off. Always good to see it's not just me asking about this stuff.
I "stupidly" assumed the bus would go to the northern MarSol office which, I noticed on getting into bus and poking at GM on phone, was a block or two from hotel. I was following progress on GM as we approached and when we didn't seem to be going that way I asked the driver who said we weren't going there and he let me off then. It was about five-ish blocks, I might have got off a hair earlier had I known but as it happened it was probably a near-optimal point anyway.
Walk wasn't that much but I felt a tiny bit conspicuous/vulnerable with my biggish backpack.
Got to hotel vaguely 1430ish, checked in and paid on credit card and they just let me have the room even though it wasn't checkin time (1500) yet.
Room/suite is quite nice, especially for the money. It is very large (booking site said 40 square metres and could vaguely believe that, probably comparable to my Elephant & Castle flat) though a tiny bit shabby and a bit dingy. (There is a window at the bed end but it looks out on a concrete wall a foot or two away with barbed wire on top.) Double bed, acres of tiled floor space free, settee and two "comfortable" chairs, dining table with four chairs, fridge, freezer, small electric stove, kitchen sink, bathroom with shower that looks like it might have hot and cold taps.
I went out to get some food to cook for myself at a nearby supermarket after checking the kitchen supplies. (No tin opener, no dishwashing liquid or sponge, no oil, no condiments of any description, no dish-drying rack, no bin.) Area immediately round hotel feels a bit arid, perhaps this indicates it's a nice area but it seems a bit devoid of cafes etc. But a couple of blocks away it seems liveliver, and as it happened when I got to the supermarket on carrera 53 there was a parade going on. (Luckily supermarket was on my side of kr 53, as not sure how/if I could have got across.)
I sort of felt I owed it to myself to watch this - it is after all nominally why I'm here, and serendipity had dumped it right in front of me - though I wasn't initially all that in the mood and I did want to get into the supermarket. I felt pretty conspicuous at first but stopped worrying about it after a while, it was busy but not insanely so and I had a half-decent view of the parade leaning up against the back railing of some non-raised-but-covered-over seating and (luckily, as I had no suncream on) I was nicely in the shade and didn't feel too hot.
Parade was mostly groups of young-ish kids but not exclusively, and although this kind of thing really isn't my bag, I was sufficiently entertained that I managed to stay for an hour as I'd vaguely said to myself I would without looking at my watch every five minutes. (I probably checked about every 15-30ish.)
Bit apprehensive at first with some kids throwing flour around - MG wrote about this, and loosely speaking I'm cool with it, but I *don't* have old clothes with me and I have no idea how/if flour would come out of my clothes in the wash. Other people (mainly kids again) had some sort of squirty foam things and I did get blasted (at a distance) with a bit of that, but I didn't care as knew that wouldn't fuck clothes up, and as it happens I didn't get hit with any flour. I really can't do much about my trousers but I just might see if I can find a place to buy a couple of cheap T-shirts before carnival proper starts.
Anyway, then went into supermarket and got some stuff. Couldn't find any hot dog buns but bought rice and tuna and veg and some hot dog sausages, also a double 1.5l pack of "Manzana Postobon" and "Colombiana" (both sugar free) soft fizzy drink - had the MP tonight, a slightly odd flavour maybe but not unpleasant (and this double pack was way cheaper than eg buying coke and is also more "novel" /local).
Came back to flat to cook. At this point I saw I had a text on my Colombian SIM. Apparently my phone is not approved for use in Colombia and will be blocked in 45 days. I did a bit of web searching on this, found very little (least of all aimed at tourists; if you're Colombian you are advised to go ask whoever sold you the phone about it) but it looks like the only way to get "approval" is some massive bureaucratic hassle involving submitting copies of numerous documents. It is completely unclear to me if it is my *specific* individual phone which is deemed iffy or if they have looked up the model from the IMEI of my specific phone and that *model* is not approved for Colombia.
I haven't yet, touch wood, had any similar messages on the Priv (with my Three SIM). I have no idea if this is because the Priv *is* approved, or because it's using a non-Colombian SIM it is somehow exempt or they're being slower on the uptake because it's a non-Colombian SIM.
This is TBH fucking ridiculous. If I can enter the country on a tourist visa for 90 days, why can't my phone be used here for 90 days? I don't see that it can be posing a threat to the telecomms infrastructure if it's taken them 3 weeks to send me this text and they're not going to block it for another month and a half.
This means effectively I will no longer be able to use my two phone strategy for the last 2-3 weeks of the trip. I suppose it is vaguely possible (even though it would still be using the same Movistar network) that putting my Three SIM in the HTC will allow it to continue working after it is blocked, but maybe not, if this is the same kind of block (albeit for different reasons) used to prevent stolen phones working. I have no idea if putting the Three SIM in the HTC *before* the block comes into effect would stop them applying the block (ie stop them *wanting* to do it; I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make them *incapable* of it), or if the phone is now on the list to be blocked in 45 days and nothing will change that.
I am deeply pissed off about this. I bought the fucking second phone specially so I wouldn't be forced to carry my only phone about with me and risk losing it in a mugging or whatever, and now some wanky rules seem to be quietly fucking this over.
I might go and - politely, and being ultra-naive on purpose - talk to someone in a Movistar shop if there's one vaguely nearby about this. I suspect there's nothing they can do even if they want to, but it will at least be a bit of Spanish practice and just maybe they can do something.
I am obviously not going to buy a new or second hand phone locally just for the last two or three weeks of the trip. (Perhaps a month; I haven't worked the dates out. But regardless.)
I suppose if push comes to shove I can switch to carrying the Priv round with me day to day (even though it has all sorts of apps and stuff on which mean I'd really rather not lose it) and keep the blocked HTC back in my hotel room as a wifi only "internet access device of last resort" , so if the Priv does get lost somehow I am at least not cut off in the same way I was when it went in for repair in BA last year.
This has really cast a fucking gloom over things.
Anyway, I then cooked. Decided to do hot dogs with rice and veg. Due to lack of pans I boiled the hot dogs first. I then did the veg+rice and due to the hob seeming to be enormously underpowered it took about 40-odd mins to cook. This meant hot dogs were stone cold and though I put them in with the veg+rice to warm through and they tasted fine, I have niggling worries about "reheating" them and food safety. Though is this really that different, given we're not talking hours here, from me having eaten them cold and them having mixed with the warm veg+rice in my stomach? Fuck knows. I also accidentally cooked way too much and although I was tempted to keep eating the cooling leftovers feelings of "shit, what if this is the final straw on food safety?" and also a feeling I might force myself to eat too much and make myself sick meant I chucked the last bit down the toilet, which felt a bit crappy.
(As noted earlier, there's no bin, unless I seriously abuse the small dirty toilet paper bin in bathroom. So I currently have a load of empty tins and a plastic bag with some mildly rotten carrots on the side and no idea what to do with them.)
So this feeling of overeating and the fact that my apparently rather successful and hardly insane plan to have my "semi-disposable mobile phone" has been scuppered by wanky rules have pissed me off rather a lot. I've spent most of the evening watching shit on YT.
Oh, and if the phone is not approved and that's critical, why didn't the n staff in the Movistar shop - who had a good old poke at it, probably taking the IMEI IIRC - say "oh no sir, this phone is not approved - it could take out our entire network if used for more than 75 days here, even though it is from a recognised manufacturer and supports bands from multiple countries! - we cannot sell you a SIM"?
I seriously - assuming I haven't misread the situation/text - had no idea that there was such a thing as a non-approved mobile phone in any country. (Short of hand-assembling your own or whatever, maybe. But the idea I might have a phone from HTC - it's not as if it's one of those fly-by-night loaded-with-spyware bottom tier Chinese ebay-only brands - which is " not approved" seems fucking crazy.) I admit the One A9s doesn't seem to have been a super popular phone, but still.
I'll copy and paste the text in here later (it's on other phone so not trivial). Re-reading it now (though it's a text so probably not overly precise) it just says it will be blocked in 45 days if not approved. But who knows, it isn't impossible that using a UK SIM in it will make this block irrelevant. I suppose there's a very slim chance that it's such an "unpopular" phone it has not yet been approved, but that some automated process of approval might kick in (e.g. no one has ever used an A9s in Colombia before - a borderline possibility, I don't think it sold a lot or in that many markets, BICBW) so it isn't on the approved list, but now this has occurred someone will do something (maybe HTC will be notified??). TBH don't think that's likely but you never know. I am kind of assuming it is the *model* not my specific phone (nothing is being said about it being stolen, and it isn't blocked in the UK).
Anyway, going to have a shower and go to bed. Breakfast is 7-10 so want to be up for that. I don't feel terrible but not super happy. I hope I feel better in the morning.
Here's the text I mentioned above:
"Su equipo no esta Homologado en Colombia.Sera bloqueado en 45 dias calendario si no se homologa.Si lo compro en Colombia reclame al Vendedor"
Anyway, as I say, shower then bed. It's 0021 now. It *was* quietly cool to see that parade earlier (it was still going on when I went into supermarket, but an hour was plenty for me really), it's really only when I got back to this text that things took a turn for the worst.
FFS, just go in the shower and go to bed Steve. But it occurs to me I have little to lose (though probably little to gain) by e-mailing HTC to ask them about this. But I'll try speaking to Movistar first.
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