It’s a small world afterall...(posting from the road)

In the 18th century, with no reliable mail system in place (some things have never changed), whalers placed a wooden barrel on Floreana Island that operated as a post office. Mail would simply be left in a barrel and picked up by passersby and delivered to its final destination, mainly Europe and the United States.

Today, the barrel remains in “Post Office Bay”. Galapagos tourists still place postcards in the barrel without any postage and other tourists will pick them up and carry them home. While the ideal situation is that the postcards are hand delivered, modern life of post office boxes and secure buildings do not always make this a possibility.

We had fun sorting through the hundreds of postcards currently in the barrel (I will be delivering 3 of them). They were literally bound for all over the world; to family, friends, President Obama etc. Some were written for future visitors to the Galapagos with requests to leave them in the box to be picked up in person. One pregnant lady wrote to her future child and let her know all the experiences she had to date. This was clearly not the postcard that I sent.

Instead I deposited over 30 postcards in this box with the hopes that they will make it to various corners of the earth. Honestly the majority of them are bound for Thunder Bay, Ontario – the home of most of my family and friends. Thunder Bay is a small city (in comparison to the rest of the world) so my hopes of anyone...”going that way” for a hand delivery is pretty small...or rather is was...

On my well worn travel hat is a small, equally worn Canadian flag patch. (Yes, most Canadian travellers can easily be identified by a small, subtle flag somewhere on their person. In contrast, the travellers who are covered in Canadian flags tend to be Americans). A fellow Canadian spotted my flag and asked the predictable question, “Where are you from?”

Obviously the title of this blog is a bit of a giveaway – this couple were from Thunder Bay as well. The world gets a bit smaller though...while we were discussing different areas of the city and ultimately addresses...this lady grew up 2 doors down from the house where my mother now lives. It was creepy to be standing on a rock in the Pacific Ocean and have a stranger accurately describe your mother’s house.

We made an agreement that day to leave each other’s postcards...the next Thunder Bay visitor will have a hand full to collect. As for the rest of you...if you do ever receive the postcard, send me a message and let me know!

(Update...one postcard sent to DC has materialized)
(ps - long story why I am dresses kind of like a nun in this photo...)