A postcard from Colombia

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Cartagena , Colombia
Thursday, February 9, 2012

Ruth and I certainly recall, while traveling years ago, going through the racks of post cards to find the ones our mothers would like. Then came the challenge of fulfilling our filial duty of saying enough so that they felt informed and reassured, without telling them what we had really been really up to. And even today, as we travel, we get pangs of orphan loss when we hear the call to send them cards, and the recall that they are not there to receive.

Not that we could easily do that, anyway. When was the last time you actually saw a rack of postcards? If you can recall a recent time, I assure you the place was not Colombia.
It began in the Bogota airport, where we kept our eyes open for postcards as we tried to change money, buy a phone card and locate a wifi hotspot. No luck. Oh well, no problem, we'll get some in our first town. Our thinking was that if we were going to send out three or four postcards to designated recipients, then we'd better do it early in the trip if they're to have any chance of getting to destination before we get home. Past experience.

First town - Tunja. Churches, museums, markets, a nearby very historic battle site - all good material for some local postcards. No luck. Well, no great surprise. We're were, after all, the only foreigners to be seen in the entire city. Just how big is the tourist market for postcards highlighting the greatest aspects of Esterhazy, Saskatchewan or Goose Bay, Labrador? At least, planning ahead, we could get the stamps now so we'd be ready. Again, no luck. This in a city that is a provincial capital and university town. Nobody seemed to know where a post office was, or where stamps were sold.

On to Villa de Leyva. Tourist magnet for nationals and internationals alike. Along it's quaint, cobbled streets a wealth of 400 year old homes and shops had been renovated to sell scarves, dresses, artwork, jewelry, Native crafts - but no postcards! Well, not exactly. Determined searching turned up one place with a small selection of historic cards - photos of VdL from 80 years ago. We bought some, and asked the vendor where we'd get stamps. Shrug. So we asked the cop, we asked our hotel, we asked the tourist office. Nope! No way to send a letter from VdL.

Next stop, Bogota. Our lift from VdL dropped us off in the busy, commercial northern sector of the city, not too far from our hotel. Since no cab would stop for us, we walked the 24 blocks. Past The Gap, past Dunking' Donuts, past banks, shopping centres, trendy boutiques, along wide sidewalks with sections set aside for bicycles, past fruit vendors and police security stations - but not past a post office or even a mailbox.
At the local supermarket we asked the checkout girl where to get stamps. We only got a perplexed stare. We realized that one of the problems here could be one of language. We had encountered on earlier jaunts around Latin America and Spain that some words, like "bathroom", "gas station", "blanket" and other surprises, seem to have regional terminologies. "Stamps" was probably one of these. When I tried "sellos" (which really means "seals", but that seemed to work in Peru), she giggled and called her friend from the other cash register. When Ruth tried "timbres"(I think we used that one in Spain), they both giggled at the crazy foreigners. So we moved to descriptive language "you know, when you send a letter. And you have to put something on it?" "Ah, sobres! (envelopes!)". "No, no. The thing you put on the envelope. To send the letter" "An address?" "Yes, you need an address. But that goes in the middle of the envelope. What's the thing that goes up here in the corner? It's a . . . a . . . a . . . a what?" Massive amounts of giggles! And then it hit me: it's not just that these girls had never played Charades or Pictionary, it's that they've never actually written a letter in their lives. 18 years old and, in their world, if it couldn't be done with two thumbs it probably had never been worth doing.

We asked Marlene, who used to live nearby. She didn't know, but suggested we'd find a place at the airport. But we'd tried the Bogota airport already. The Leticia airport, we were told. But, surprise!, surprise!, there was no postal outlet at the Leticia airport. Nor, for that matter, in the entire city of Leticia. Remember that this, too, is a provincial capital. It has a branch of the national university and is a centre for import/export along the Amazon with Brazil and Peru. Don't these people ever mail an invoice? Doesn't the regional government send documents to Bogota? We just don't get it. But we did get a postcard! In one of the shops selling wood carvings and woven fibre baskets, there was a stack of well-thumbed-through postcards of monkeys and river vistas. If postcards aged well like wine or whiskey, these would be worth a fortune. We bought one to add to our collection of material we were beginning to suspect would get mailed from Vancouver.

So today we're in Cartagena, Colombia's major tourist destination. Not a mailbox anywhere. Lots of tourist shops though. Carvings, hammocks, rosaries, paintings, etc. I bought a t-shirt. In one shop, do my eyes deceive me?, we saw some postcards. Great! - so we asked the shopkeeper how we could get stamps. Only to happy to oblige, she pulled open a drawer and presented us with a selection of packaged philatelic collectibles from the 1980's. We asked around town for a post office, and got more blank stares. A woman at a museum pointed out a spot on the map, but when we went there, there was nothing. A woman at the difficult-to-find tourist kiosk (apparently the actual office is closed) said that, yes, there was a post office within the walled city, and, yes, we could drop off postcards there, but, no, we couldn't actually buy stamps there. However, if we took a cab out to such-and-such address in the commercial district, she assured us that we could both buy stamps and mail postcards in one easy location!

And we might even try. This morning we've been at the beach in Cartagena, and I've been writing this blog while lying in the sun, fending off vendors (even while I wrote this one partial paragraph I've had to wave away a hat vendor, a cold drinks vendor and the offer of a massage). We're leaving here shortly, planning to visit an old Spanish fortress. And then, the descent into Dante's Unknown Circle of Hell - the quest for postage stamps.

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We found them! Right at the place she said! A mostly empty office with displays of philatelic aspirations in the cases all around. And a man prepared to sell us exactly what we needed. And now (drum roll, please) for the best part - it costs THREE AND A HALF BUCKS to mail a postcard!!

Well no wonder those grocery girls had never mailed anything! I'll never complain about Canada Post again.

So in the end, we chose to mail only two. Vancouver postcards will get delivered by hand. And probably sooner. Thus endeth my tale.

BTW, in case you should ever undertake one of The Labours of Hercules and choose to buy postcards and mail them in Colombia, the Spanish word you want is "estampillas".

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.

Avi

Comments

We had the exact same problem in Argentina! Postcards were easy enough to find, but when you turned them over, there was no spot for a stamp and no spot for the address. After all the trouble and expense it took to obtain a stamp, I realized that nobody actually intends for you to mail them...
Really enjoying the blog, looking forward to hearing more! From Claire, on Feb 11, 2012 at 03:30AM
Great adventure. Who got the postcard?
Hugs,
Mary From Mary, on Feb 14, 2012 at 09:21AM
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