A Cuencano guide to losing your cell phone

There are few moments in life when you can definitely feel your soul leave your body. One is when you realise you left the gas cylinder valve open when you went on vacation. Another is when you hear three large dogs growling in unison just as you slam your apartment door shut and the keys are inside. The third is when you step out of a taxi in Cuenca with two heavy shopping bags, take three steps, and feel a strange light pocket of air where your cell phone used to be in your pants pocket.

It can happen in a flash. A taxi seat in Cuenca is soft, the springs a little worn. Your phone slides out of your pocket like a greased cuy on a hillside. If both hands are full of plastic bags from Coral and a string of onions, and you are using your knee to open the door of the taxi, you cannot perform the pat-your-pocket check until the taxi has already pulled away and it is too late,

There goes your phone, heading for Feria Libre without you. (I am told this cannot happen with Uber, but I will believe it when I see it,)

For a moment everything stops and your lungs gasp the thin air of Cuenca in case there is any oxygen available. There isn’t. You consider chasing the taxi on foot, but you are a grown adult with weak lungs and an honest fear of slipping on a wet sidewalk, falling into a pile of dog poop, and breaking an arm.

Before you enter full crisis mode, you must remember one thing. Some Cuenca taxi drivers do return lost phones, especially if there is a reward. Of course, many do not, but my mother told me not to write anything if I could not write something good. A few will drive all the way back to your house, and a few will drive all the way to Mall del Río and start a new life with your Samsung A10. This is why preparation is the only real defense.

The Charlie Larga Disaster Preparedness Plan

1. Set up Android tracking today, not tomorrow
Every Android phone has a built-in location tool called Find My Device.
Turn it on while you still have the phone in your hand.

Open Settings
Tap Security
Tap Find My Device
Turn on all three options

This gives you two superpowers. You can see the phone on a map. You can also make it ring at full volume even if it is set to silent. That loud alarm is essential because a taxi back seat suppresses the weak bleat of an orphaned phone like a thick alpaca wool hoodie.

There is also a special screen you can trigger. It displays a giant message that says your phone is lost, it gives your alternative number, and it places a button for the taxi driver to tap so they can call you back immediately. Set that up under …

Settings–Security–Find My Device–Set Lock Screen Message
Make it simple. “Lost phone. Please call me. Reward $25.” or “Teléfono perdido. Por favor, comuníquese conmigo. Recompensa de $25.”

Do not write anything fancy. Drivers do not have time for poetry, but a reward of $25 will more than compensate for an hour of lost passengers and will not require an IVA invoice either. And if devout, it may even ease the passage of the taxi driver into heaven at some point in the future.

2. A backup phone is not a luxury in Cuenca
I recommend a cheapish, but by no means useless Redmi Note phone as your second handset. Keep it at home, charged, connected to WiFi, and sitting in a drawer like a faithful Labrador. It should have the following already installed.

A second WhatsApp Business account associated with your backup number.
Azutaxi logged in and ready, because you may need to message the dispatcher.
Duplicate banking apps if they will allow it.
A valid pay-as-you-go Tuenti SIM registered to you, preferably with a few dollars of saldo.

When your main phone is gone, you will move like a stunned ghost through your apartment in a state of grief and will need something that just works. The backup phone must be ready before tragedy strikes, because afterwards your hands will be shaking.

3. The horrors of losing a modern Cuenca phone
While the cost of a replacement phone is painful, the real agony lies in what the phone contains. Things like:

Bank apps, local and foreign.
Google Pay with your Amex card on board.
WhatsApp and Google Voice.
Azutaxi.
All those verification codes you never wrote down, pictures of PIN numbers, and your Contacts.

Once you lose the phone, you enter a new world full of pop-up messages that say things like “This device is not authorised” and “Please verify using your old number” or even “Enter the code we sent to the phone you left in a taxi.”

You will curse softly and look out of your window and see your neighbour cheerfully shaking a rug innocently unaware of the apocalyptic events taking place next door, and you will wish you had never left your gringo tribal village in Appalachia or Yellowknife.

4. Do not panic and factory reset the phone too soon
This is the biggest mistake people make. They rush online and hit the nuclear button on Google’s remote erase tool. If you are sure the phone is in the hands of evildoers then by all means go ahead. But on the off chance the taxi driver might be honest, or the phone might have simply fallen under the seat, you may regret it.

A factory reset will lock the phone permanently until the person enters your Google password. Some honest taxi drivers give up at this point and toss the phone because they cannot use it or return your number.

So wait and use the tracking tools. Ring the phone loudly a couple of times. Display the giant message on the screen. Try your backup WhatsApp. Try Azutaxi. Try prayer. Sacrifice a lamb or a kid. Only when you know the phone is gone forever should you press the purge button.

5. The cost is not the main problem
Yes, phones are expensive, but the real cost is the disruption to your life and your mental health. Losing a phone in Cuenca is like losing a key to half your life. You will spend hours resetting passwords, retrieving bank logins, explaining to relatives why your profile photo suddenly looks like a llama, and reinstalling every little app that made your daily life work. Even Tuenti will ask you for something you forgot years ago, if you ever knew it, like your ex-wife’s wedding anniversary date.

The only cure is preparation. Two phones. Two WhatsApps. Backup SIM. Tracking tools. A loud alarm and a lock screen message written in language that even a tired taxi driver can read. And a tempting dollar amount.

Take the time to set all this up. The next time you step out of a small yellow Kia taxi with three bags of bargain shopping, a string of onions, a meter-tall potted plant, and an empty pocket, you will thank yourself. And you might even get your phone back.