Country Article / Postcards
Modern Wonders of the Ancient World
Date: 02/09/2007International Living Postcards--your daily escape
Friday, Feb. 9, 2007
Antigua, Guatemala
I just phoned home (Santa Fe, New Mexico) from Antigua, Guatemala for 10 cents!
Okay, admittedly all I did was leave a message of less than a minute on an answering machine, but still…10 cents? All I had to do was find an Internet café.
Whenever I venture into Third World countries, it feels like a visit to the past. The streets and sidewalks are often in disarray, local transportation is by chicken bus (old school buses that we’ve discarded), and, what attracts me here in the first place, the ruins of centuries gone by around every corner.
But here's the flip side: modern technology that provides a link to our home, office, and loved ones. For example, Internet service in Antigua is about $1 per hour, and many of these cafés have the telephone services with low international rates I just told you about.
Other modern amenities here include cable television with hundreds of channels that bring entertainment and news broadcasts from around the world, and comfortable bars that show the Super Bowl.
Geary Radcliffe
For International Living