Hand Deliver a Galapagos Post Card Halfway Around the World
Who wouldn’t want a post card from this guy? (Photo: Jo Piazza)
Just a couple of bruised and wind-beaten barrels and a donkey skull mark Post Office Bay on the Western side of the small island of Floreana in the Galapagos archipelago. It’s a post office only in the loosest sense of the word, but mail does indeed travel from here around the world.
In case you were unsure that this is a post office. (Photo: Nick Aster)
Since the end of the 18th Century American and British whalers have been leaving mail here in the hopes that someone traveling in the missive’s generaldirection would help get it to its rightful recipient…..sans postage. It was a cheap, although undependable way to keep in touch with friends and family during a long journey.
These days tourists leave post cards addressed to their own loved onesand oftentimes to themselves. They gather about 30 meters from the water, curious sea lions looking on in confusions, paging through a stack of cards, some dating back more than a decade. If you find the postcard addressed close to where you live, you’re supposed to go to the person’s house, knock on the door and deliver it.
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This is the stuff romantic comedies are made of. Right? Leave a post card addressed to yourself and maybe six months from now a handsome stranger will come knocking on your door. Hilarity will ensue and you’ll fall madly in love.
Some cards are more than ten-years old and undelivered because they were left here for a very specific person to come pick them up in the Galapagos and that person has yet to come.
One couple penned a postcard to their unborn daughter, hoping she would visit one day to collect it.
Searching for an address close to home. (Photo: Nick Aster)
“We came here with you when you were just 25 weeks old and in your mom’s belly. We snorkeled with you with the sea lions and penguins. We hope you get to enjoy this wonderful place one day…love mom and dad.”
Another women wrote a note to her deceased mother.
“You should be here with me.” The address was “heaven.”
WATCH: A Visit to Post Office Bay
(Video: Nick Aster/Triple Pundit)
Post cards are addressed far and wide, Australia, South Africa, Kenya, Norway, even the Cook Islands. I counted at least thirteen different languages. Out of hundreds, I found only messages of love and good will. No one seemed to be ruminating on anything hateful from the Galapagos.
Related: Finding the Real Galapagos
Some folks offered bits of wisdom gleaned from their journey here.
“Enjoy the little things.”
“Live in the moment.”
“YOLO.”
I must have sifted through hundreds of postcards and yet I couldn’t find a single one to deliver in New York City. I cast the net wider. Where would I be traveling in the next couple of months? I found one postcard for Nashville, Tennessee and another for Palmer, Alaska, both of which I plan to visit in February.
Just dropping off my cards. (Photo: Nick Aster)
Then I wrote three cards. One to my mom, one to my friend Brad and one to myself….because you just never know.
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