In certain countries in Latin America, house-to-house delivery of letters by a postman has been the privilege of those who were living on the main avenues

of the principal towns. Decades ago, many people would pay for a Casilla or an Apartado at the Post Office instead of having to queue in front of the Lista

de correos desk to ask for any letters.

For people with unknown addresses, letters could sometimes be sent in care of someone with a well-known address, for instance a radio station.

Radio Zaracay, in Ecuador, Radio Estrella Polar, in Peru, La Voz de Samaniego, and La Voz de Anserma, in Colombia, are stations which in the past used to

mention names of people having letters to collect at the station.

There are countries possessing fast and reliable mail services, but, as a rule, people may prefer to send important mail some other way, preferably with a

friend or a relative who is about to travel to the same place. In several countries, local bus companies will carry mail.

In Bolivia, people may choose to send their postal items via Flota Copacabana coach. This bus company dumps the mail, not only parcels but also plain

letters, at each bus terminal along their routes.

In Colombia, where airmail was introduced in 1919, a private company, Avianca, was in charge of all airmail, while surface mail was handled by the

state-owned Adpostal. Only stamps marked “Aéreo” was accepted by Avianca. In 1966, coinciding with the introduction of jetliners for national airmail,

Avianca offered an unusual special delivery service.

Letters posted in Bogotá in the morning would be delivered to the addressee in any of 20 major towns the same afternoon.

This service worked for some time but is history now. The Colombian postal services has been unified and the service is now more like “snail-mail”.

In Peru, at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th century, a letter from the jungle town of Iquitos to Lima would travel by boat down the Amazon river to the Atlantic

port of Belém, in Brazil, and thence to Liverpool in the UK from where it was sent back to Lima via the Straits of Magellan (the southernmost tip of South

America)!

In general, it seems that letters from Europe to Latin America are handled faster than those that have been mailed from a neighbouring country. In 1966,

letters from Sweden or Germany to Colombia would arrive in 3 days, while letters from the UK and USA needed 5. A letter from Colombia to Ecuador would

also take up to 5 days.

Mail sent from Latin America to Europe is slower. In the heydays of Avianca, letters from Colombia to Sweden would arrive in 5 days. If registered and sent

by special delivery – via Paris – a letter would make it in just 2 days!

Postage rates in 2010 are considerably higher from Latin America to Europe than vice-versa. Broadcasting companies and other major companies in Latin

America have become heavily dependent on mail and package delivery companies such as DHL, Fedex, UPS or their local counterparts. The cost of renting a

Casilla or an Apartado has risen steeply in Latin America. In the 1960’s and 1970’s an Apartado Aéreo was commonplace in Colombia, a Casilla in

Argentina. Today’s electronic messaging services are about to convert P.O. Boxes into relics of the past.