Cell Phone Concerns- Second To Guarding My Passport
[QUOTE=JjBee62;2416662]I always carry my cell phone. In El Centro, or on the Metro, I carry it in my front pocket. I don't pull out my cellphone while walking around in El Centro. If I need to look at my phone, I step into a business, or put myself out of the pedestrian flow. Having your cellphone in your hand is a good way to lose your phone..[/QUOTE]The following are my concerns regarding carrying cell phones around Medellin.
I have two cell phones. One is my USA cell phone, an "I" phone, with Verizon service in the USA. It's my lifeline with my kids, business, and other matters in the USA. If I lose it or it gets stolen, there is no way I can get my number replaced in Colombia. That is what Verizon has told me. Hence it doesn't leave my apartment unless I am going somewhere very specific, etc. And I am grateful that when I got held up by gunpoint with my Chica about a month ago that they didn't go thru my pockets. All of my WhatsApp contacts are on this phone, everything. To further illustrate, when I use my ATM / Credit cards here I sometimes get text messages to confirm transactions. And all kinds of other types of text messages. So without my cell phone I can get blocked out of pulling money out of ATM's and then have to make a whole bunch of time consuming phone calls.
So my other phone is a Nokia Colombian burner phone. Not a smart phone. A lot of my Chicas don't have smart phones, and the Chicas I have that do, I communicate with them thru Whatsapp to arrange meetups, and they also have my Colombian number. I have lost my Colombian cell here in Colombia, and since I registered it, all I had to do was go Claro, pay a small fee, and was given a new Sim card which I pop into another burner phone, and I am ready to go.
I don't know anything about other USA cell phone service providers, and if you have a USA cell phone and can replace the number easily while away from the USA if you lose it, than I concur with you about carrying it around with caution. However, if not, I would think twice about carrying around a USA cell phone, regardless if your in El Centro, or El Poblado, as you could lose your phone anywhere.
So if your in the same situation I am in with a USA cell phone, I suggest you purchase a burner phone for like $ 20 USD, you will be given a number which I believe will be good for thirty days before it will be shut off if not registered, and keep you other phone locked up. I suggest service from Claro as they have offices everywhere while the other providers have very few offices.
I am sure there are other ways around this for the technical savy guy's on this board which I am not.