BARRIO – For years, Correos del Ecuador, the national postal service, was slow and unreliable. During the pandemic, it closed. Ecuador became one of only a few countries not to have a postal service.

There are no door-to-door daily deliveries by postal carriers in mail trucks. You can get home deliveries in some areas, but you’ll have limited options and several obstacles to overcome.

Exact addresses are uncommon in Ecuador, and most streets don’t have signs, so home delivery is quite challenging. You’ll need to provide detailed directions to your home with the nearest cross streets, and even then, you’ll likely get a call from the driver asking where you live and you’ll need to go out and meet him on the street.

Couriers will not leave packages outside your gate or door so you’ll need to be home in order to receive delivery. Or you can go to the nearest office to retrieve your package.

Mail service in Ecuador has a long way to go before it’s anything like the U.S. Postal Service or the home delivery offered by UPS and other parcel services. The entire country would need to adopt a universal addressing system, as well as install street signs in standard formats and locations so they’re easy to see. Since this would be a costly and massive undertaking, we don’t expect home delivery outside the major cities to improve anytime soon.