The Galapagos Post Office

Via Seth Godin’s blog:

On a deserted beach on a small island near the equator, there’s a barrel and some ziploc bags. This post office has been here for more than a hundred years. It was built by whalers who needed a way to get letters home to England. The idea was that the last stop you would make on your way home was to the post office. You’d pick up whatever letters were there and bring them back to England.

I dropped two postcards in the barrel ten days ago (no stamps, of course). They arrived on Wednesday. I’m told some notes take as long as a month or two. Apparently, you can send a letter anywhere in the world and count on it showing up. There’s actually a shortage of mail… more people want to carry the letters then write them.

Stories like this just make me smile. The world’s such a curious place – how could you not want to see it all?