Category: Countries

List of countries I received postcards from.

Tayrona National Natural Park, Colombia

The Tayrona National Natural Park in Colombia was created to preserve the local ecological environment, and is located in the Colombian northern Caribbean region. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the highest coastal mountain in the world, plunge into the sea forming beautiful bays and coves, with their sandy white beaches surrounded by mangrove swamps, bushes and forests and bathed in the crystal clear water of the Caribbean sea. The Park offers magnificent beaches, and has archaeological ruins of an ancient city of the Tayrona people. Interesting fact: there is an obligatory environmental education introductory talk when you visit.

Colombia postcard

Colombia stamps

Cocos Keeling Islands – Prison Island

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are a remote territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. Its 2 coral atolls comprise 27 tiny islands with white-sand beaches, palm trees and lagoons. Pictured on this postcard is the Prison Island. This now tiny island housed a prison in the early days of settlement, though little remains of this today except the name. In local language, Malay, it is known as Pulu Beras – ‘rice island’. Prison Island is also a place of legend – the Cocos Malay people say that a mermaid lives there and that she calls back home any Cocos-born people who leave the islands’ shores.

Cocos Keeling Islands postcard Cocos Keeling Islands stamp

China

China is the world’s most populous country (with a population of over 1.381 billion), and world’s second largest state by land area. It is also one of the world’s earliest civilizations.

I don’t really know what is pictured on this postcard. But it came from China, so I assume it is somewhere in China 🙂

China postcard China stamps

Ancient Chilean Pictographs

Several sites of prehistoric rock art exist in Chile. The works comprise the three main techniques employed by the pre-Hispanic artists: petroglyphs (engravings), pictographs (paintings) and geoglyphs (markings or designs on the land). The ones pictures on this postcard are the pictographs of Milla: “On one of the panels, two camelids with blank faces, one with an empty womb, are depicted walking, followed by a person wearing a feather plume and preceded by another dressed in a tunic decorated with a zigzag motif and headdress similar to the traditional conical hats of the Tamarugal Pampa.”

Chile postcard

Chile stamp

Postcard from Hell, Cayman Islands

Hell is a group of short, black, limestone formations located in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Located in West Bay, it is roughly the size of half a soccer field. It is claimed that the name “Hell” is derived from the fact that if a pebble is thrown out into the formation, it echoes amongst the limestone peaks and valleys and sounds as if the pebble is falling all the way down to “Hell.”

Cayman Islands postcard

Cayman Islands stamp

Canada’s Nature

The world’s second largest country, Canada is blessed with a stunning variety of landscapes, seascapes, flora and fauna. Its incredibly spectacular scenery – and the many species that make their homes in its midst – is a source of great pleasure and pride. If you love the outdoors, Canada is a wonderful world of natural delight.

Canada postcard

Canada stamps

Bamileke elephant masks, Cameroon

Elephant masks take the form of an important royal icon, the elephant, with its long trunk and large ears. The patterns on the front and back panels suggest another royal icon, the leopard. The display of wearing these richly embellished masks and other regalia at court ceremonies was the best evidence of the wealth of a Bamileke kingdom. The Bamileke people populate western part of the savannahs in Cameroon.

Cameroon postcard

Cameroon stamps

The Baths, BVI

The Baths are a beach area on the island of Virgin Gorda among the British Virgin Islands. The Baths is an area of unique geologic formations and one of the BVI’s major tourist destinations. At The Baths we see granite that eroded into piles of boulders on the beach. Granite forms from the slow cooling of magma at depth nowhere close to surface volcanoes. The granite only appears at the surface after geologic ages have eroded away all the overburden covering it. Once exposed, erosion continued to isolate the granite into large boulders and round their surfaces. The boulders form natural tidal pools, tunnels, arches, and scenic grottoes that are open to the sea.

British Virgin Islands postcard

British Virgin Islands stamps

Varna, Bulgaria

Varna is a port city and seaside resort on Bulgaria‘s Black Sea, adjacent to the coastal resorts of Golden Sands, St. Konstantin and Albena. It’s famous for the “Gold of Varna,” 6,000-year-old Thracian jewelry discovered in a necropolis. The jewelry’s displayed inside the Archaeological Museum, along with Greek, Roman and Ottoman antiquities. A bar-lined waterfront promenade fronts 19th-century Primorski Park.

Bulgaria postcard

Bulgaria stamps