The Post Office

We have posted our mail adventures before but here is a new one. Four weeks ago, Loretta ordered a coat from an Ebay outlet in the US. They used Ebay’s standard $20 international shipping charge.  When we had not received the package after 4 weeks, we checked United States Postal Service tracking and found that it had arrived in Ecuador four days after being shipped and had been held in customs for weeks. Though we had no information other than the tracking information and no idea where customs would hold it, we felt that logically, it might be at the post office in Cuenca Centro. Armed with passport, cedula, and, what we felt was an adequate amount of money, we went to the post office at their appointed hour (package pickup is Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings).  

Loretta stood on one line, was sent to another, and was sent back to the original line. She is the one in the photo being crushed against the window. When her turn at the wicket came, they checked her cedula, a customs inspector in military clothing opened and inspected the package, and handed her the coat without comment. There was no extra duty and no extra postage. Fortunately, Loretta had requested the sender mark on the declaration that the coat was used and had the sales tickets removed.  We were also lucky in that we thought the logical place for the customs hold up would be at the post office. We later wondered what would have happened if we had not figured that out. Would they have finally looked at the address on the package and sent us a notice that it was being held by customs? The only logical answer is that our next mail adventure will undoubtedly be different. 

Yes, there is mail in Ecuador

Our mailbox in North Carolina was filled with at least 10 pieces of mail every day of the week. Seventy-five percent was junk mail, and the remainder bills and an occasional letter from friends that didn’t use email.  To our surprise, receiving mail is actually an event in Cuenca. Personal mail boxes are a rarity. There are actually no street addresses in the country though, fortunately, they exist in the city. And, so far, we have found only one post office which is located in the Centro. Bills are not sent by mail. A person pays at the store or business or has utility bills automatically deducted from a bank account.  When you receive a letter or package, a courier on a motorcycle comes to your house or apartment, rings the bell, and gives you the item in exchange for whatever extra postage is due. If you receive a package that requires duty be paid, the man on the motorcycle will give you a notice to come to the post office in the center of town between the hours of 8:30 and 12:30 only on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays. You present the notice and a national policeman will cut open the package, examine the contents and assess a duty to be paid before the package is given to you. The same post office is where you send mail abroad. A one page letter will cost around $2.00 in postage stamps to mail to the US. Packages can be sent from the post office but they are best forwarded by DHL (office near the stadium) who have the best international service. We sent a small box under a pound to the US the other day and it cost $31.00. We have not tried sending packages to other countries so are not aware of the expense.  It is a little more complicated In order to receive mail or packages. Though we have not placed many orders, it is quite straightforward placing a mail order with a US company and have it shipped directly to our address in Cuenca. If you are ordering a used item, there will probably be no duty assessed. US companies are set up to make international shipments on new items and will make the customs declaration and collect the international postage in advance. As an example, we ordered an $8 filter for our Nikon camera and it arrived in two weeks but with handling and international shipping and duty, the total came to $55. We also ordered $90 worth of vitamins that are hard to get in Cuenca. The vitamin company charged us an additional $37 in postage and handling. We received a notice from the post office to come and pick it up. A man behind a wicket advised we owed $1.75 additional postage and then handed us our box which appeared unopened. So, we have received packages three ways. Once it was delivered to our apartment and just handed to us by the courier. Another time the package was opened by the National Police at the post office and we paid duty. And this last time, we were given the unopened package at the post office after paying additional postage. We have yet to find the best way to order new items from the US but each time it seems to have worked.  Before we left the States, we were concerned about how to get letters forwarded to us that would undoubtedly continue to arrive at our old address. We chose Earth Class Mail (www.earthclassmail.com) as our international forwarder. But this has to be set up in the US before you leave as there is a US Postal Service form that must be filled out giving Earth Class Mail the authority to handle your mail. The system has served us well in that we had many business, tax and other important mailings that were difficult to make forwarding arrangements with prior to leaving and it was impossible to contact each of them before leaving. Plus, our house in Challuabamba, like all the country homes, had no mailing address that we could give our correspondents. Earth Class Mail operates by sending an email letting you know that they have received a letter for you. They then ask if you want them to scan the content which takes one day. If you want it forwarded they will forward the letter to your Ecuador address. If you don’t want the mail, they will shred it for you. We usually have them shred a bill after we have looked at the scan to see what we owe and when it is due which we then pay online. They also have a new service where they will deposit a check to your bank for you. It takes a little getting used to but if you take an overall look at the mail service in Ecuador, it will at first seem slow and archaic but, fortunately, it works.

Shipping into and out of Ecuador

If you plan to ship furniture or other items to Ecuador, there is a very involved process with rules that change frequently. We chose Mayflower in the US to make a door to door shipment of a 40’ container from North Carolina to our new home in Cuenca. All I can advise is that you check with a reputable shipper in the US to find the latest information. The cost, based on weight for 15,000#, was approximately $12,000 which included insurance, packing in the US and unpacking in Cuenca, land transportation to Charleston, sea transport to Guayaquil, customs charges and land transportation to Cuenca. Guayaquil used to be famous for stealing from containers but with the new government this has lessened considerably. We had nothing stolen and nothing broken. We have heard that it is far less complicated to clear customs in Cuenca than it is in Guayaquil. Choosing what to bring and what not to bring is such an individual question that it will be up to you to decide. We wish that we had brought more and sold less in the US but there are others who arrived here with a dozen suitcases (paying the overweight air charges) and buying what they needed in Ecuador. It may be a tossup in cost but, in our case, we have the things we love. If you have individual packages shipped to Ecuador from the US, they will be either opened or valued according to the customs declaration and import duties will be added. This makes shipping from the US quite expensive unless it is something you need desperately. In the city there are street addresses but in the country there are no street names or house numbers. Some people take out post office boxes for $25 a year that are located around town like in the photo but this has not worked well for us.

 We do get mail at our apartment but it is, once again, not like in the US. Getting mail is not common. Letters are delivered by a man on a bicycle to our apartment but if we get a package, we receive a phone call from the post office telling us to come in to pay whatever import duty is due. To get a package at the post office, we have to go downtown between 8:00 and 12:30 on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday and stand on line while a national policeman opens the package, inspects it and announces its value which must be paid on the spot. There are no zip codes in Ecuador. To send a letter to the US, you go to the post office where the letter is weighed and postage of $1.00 – $4.00 is levied. It takes from 7 to 10 days for delivery in the US, depending on where it is going.