Not having Internet data on my iPhone kinda bites. I’ve got GPS, and the ability to take pictures and videos and compose emails of things that I see and experience… and no way to use them unless there’s open WiFi. Unfortunately, a lot of folks around here actually lock down their networks (good for them, bad for the casual traveler in search of a few kilobytes of data to find out where the heck he happens to be).
The first step was finding a cell phone store. Despite what I’ve heard about the crime rate in Brazil, everyone on the street seems pretty comfortable and casual so I figured I’d be fine as long as I paid attention and didn’t wander down the wrong street. If you’re reading this, I didn’t.
I found one store that was closed, stopped two women on the street and asked if they could direct me to another one (which was just a couple of doors away). Although the store does carry GSM phones and SIMs, and has a pre-paid plan with unlimited texting, Facebook, and Twitter, my iPhone didn’t work with their SIM. It looks like I forgot to unlock it after jailbreaking it this last time around. Oops! So I just followed these handy instructions to unlock the phone again. Of course, I can’t test this until I get another SIM card when my host returns and I can borrow his Nokia to verify.
Yup, you can take the tech-geek out of the country, but you can’t take the… wait, that’s now how it goes.
The personal blog of Peter Nikolaidis