On holiday in the Limpopo province, I ran into an interesting glitch. I brought an outdoor mobile internet kit with me to the nature reserve I would be staying in for the week. Everything is working fine, but I am using my cell phone SIM card to run it. I did it to get it up and running and test it out. I didn’t remember to bring another SIM card with me from town and decided to buy one in Bella Bella (Warmbaths) the day after I got it running.

Rocked up at the local Shoprite, picked up a starter pack for 99c thinking that I will soon be able to pop this SIM card into my outdoor router and get my cell phone SIM card (used for business calls) back into my cell phone come Monday morning. Unfortunately I have to keep my phone on during business hours even when I go away, seeing as I work for myself, making these steps are necessary.

I sit down and dial 100 on the new SIM card to activate as per the instructions, and choose option one to activate, then follows tragedy. After 60km’s on the road to town and back, I have to get the SIM card RICA’d for duty. That means I have to drive back to town to do this. Basically RICA made the idea of a starter pack at a grocery store redundant. I now have to drive back today and get the SIM card RICA’d so that can have mobile internet convenience. And so it is that criminals in our crime ridden little country at the Southern tip of Africa cost me (and I am not alone I daresay) 120km on the road to get something simple as a SIM card working. I am hitting the road now, so let’s hope it is only 120km’s and not more…

UPDATE: The place that sells the starter packs should do the RICA registration. I did not have my proof of residence with me, so asked a family member who did to do it on their name…