BajaNomad

50 years ago. The guy with the typewriter and card table.

BornFisher - 2-28-2024 at 08:48 PM

I met a guy up in Nevada a few years ago who said his brother collected old stamps from Baja. I know nothing about Baja postage stamps but it brought back memories of San Blas (mainland) 50 years ago and Ensenada. Outside the post office, there would be someone with a card table and typewriter who would type and send a letter for you. That was when illiteracy was common and such a service was in demand.
We would send letters (we didn`t use this service) and ask for a reply to be sent to the local post office, general delivery. Wait about 10 days, then go to the post office and go through the general delivery pile to see if one was for you. Anyway just posing this for nostalgia and something for us old guys to chew on!
And I think that guy`s brother has a cool hobby!


AKgringo - 2-28-2024 at 10:22 PM

I have fond memories of San Blas from several visits there over my lifetime. Our Family spent a week there in 1959 (I was 12 years old) and I returned as a teen ager traveling with my brother and a good friend in 1965.

The coast highway did not exist then, but I got to drive it south from San Blas in 1986 when I took my own family back to visit some of the places my parents had taken me when I was a kid.

Even in 1986, trying to make a phone call back to the states was an ordeal, y muy caro!

Marc - 2-29-2024 at 07:50 AM

Remember postage stamps you had to brush on the glue?

Don Jorge - 2-29-2024 at 01:31 PM

Quote: Originally posted by BornFisher  
We would send letters (we didn`t use this service) and ask for a reply to be sent to the local post office, general delivery. Wait about 10 days, then go to the post office and go through the general delivery pile to see if one was for you. Anyway just posing this for nostalgia and something for us old guys to chew on!

Nice memories. Lista de correos and waiting in line to make a phone call from a booth next to a pulqueria with quail eggs and peanuts as tapas on the bar.

Thanks for sharing the nostalgia. Baja can do that to some people. It does it to me. Must be time to go back.

AKgringo - 2-29-2024 at 01:45 PM

On the "65" trip I mentioned, we were actually in Manzanillo by mid November of 64. Dave, Rocky and I sat down and collaborated on a letter that we mailed back to our fellow party animals back north (one of them was actually born in the state of Colima).

They responded and we got it about two weeks later. Mexican postage at the time was 50 centavos, which was 4 cents US, the price of a stamp at the time. They saw the stamp, and figured that they needed to put a 50 cent US stamp on the envelope!

And yes, we had to go to the post office and collect our general delivery letter.

[Edited on 2-29-2024 by AKgringo]