Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

Today we completed a long-distance mission that we accepted while in the Galapagos in March. There was a place on the island of Floreana called “Post Office Bay” that has a barrel that holds postcards written by people visiting the Galapagos, addressed to others all around the world. The idea is that other visitors rifle through the postcards, take any that are near their homes, and then deliver them when they return. No postage required. There’s a lot of history in that barrel – it dates back to the 18th century when whalers used it to send messages home.

Dave and I are not quite as fast as the postal service, since we picked up the postcards on March 11 and delivered them on August 23. Also, there was no snow, rain, sleet or even a cloud in the sky today as we delivered our mail (unlike the rest of August here!), so we’re not as hardy as the postal service. But, you get what you pay for. We have only been home a few weeks since March, so not too bad.

We delivered four postcards to people who live in Boston and in one of the suburbs that’s not too far from us. We rang the doorbells hoping that the recipients would come out to chat, but unfortunately no one was home at any of the places we visited. We just left the postcards in the mailboxes or under the door with a sticky note saying that Dave and Meredith delivered them (of course we also left our blog address!).

Mission accomplished.

– Meredith