For our summer vacation my wife and I, wanting sun and secluded beaches and really wanting to avoid technology of any kind, stayed at the amazing Casa Iguana on tiny Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. It is a lobster fishing island in the Caribbean with a population of 750.

So, what do you find when you travel 60 miles off the coast of Nicaragua by plane and by panga (fishing boat), and then on foot through jungle paths to your rustic and presumably low-tech destination?

Sigh, you find an Internet cafe.

Casa Iguana has no phones, no TV, no air conditioning or even fans. They do have some electricity, but only for lights in the evening powered by a generator, and also a small wind turbine for charging batteries.

And then they have the Internet cafe. Just as important, the cafe also features the only non-instant cup of coffee on the whole island. The cafe is connected to the Internet via a satellite dish. It is equipped with two workstations and one Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows XP, so damp from humidity that the keys were all nearly stuck and the touchpad was barely responsive. It's also got a spider the size of my face living on the wall outside (insert "Web" joke here).

So, did I waver and check in with work? I'm sorry but, yes I did (I'm so weak), but my gracious co-workers did shun me. They believe in time off being time off. On the other hand, my wife noticing that some island locals had mobile phones and cell service (but only on the west side of the island), switched on her Blackberry, which connected to her work e-mail via Claro, the local mobile network (one of the largest in the Americas) and began pulling in the all e-mails she'd missed over the previous two and a half days -- all 496 (!) of them.

Yikes, maybe next time we'll just stay home.

For a look at the island and the Internet cafe, click here

Sacha Lecca is the senior photo editor for InformationWeek