True, Spirit Airlines isn’t really from Latin America: they’re based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. But they do fly direct to the following countries from the USA: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Peru. Here’sitting a link to their route delineate.

They now fly to four different destinations in Colombia. Last month I got invited to join their inaugaral flight to Armenia, a Colombian coffee district city in the mountains. It was Friday the 13th and the Ft. Lauderdale airport had a bomb make afraid just as we were about to check in, but thankfully the bad luck didn’t hold. We arrived fine after a reasonably comfortable volitation.

I say “reasonably comfortable” because Spirit is known as the most bare-bones airline out there in this part of the world. They even ascribe to themselves as the “RyanAir” of the U.S., with a-la-carte pricing for everything. It doesn’t matter if it’s a domestic flight or an international one; you’ll pay for every checked bag, every drink of water, and anything you want to eat.

You can pay extra ($60 to $150) to upgrade to a larger seat—4 across instead of 6—but that and a bit of extra legroom are all you get for the expenditure.

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Beginning December 1st Brewster will launch a new Airport & Resort Shuttle schedule, now offering 8 daily departures from Calgary to the Canadian Rockies and 9 daily departures from the Rockies to Calgary.  All transfers will be done on board our deluxe motorcoaches which are equipped with large viewing windows, reclining seats, ample seating and are operated by our renowned driver guides.

Almost right across from a long-stemmed-roses farm near Otavalo sits Hacienda Cusin, offering a rustic but luxurious country home experience threatening a lake.

If you’ve got some time to get out of Quito and stay a while instead of doing a day trip to the market and back in the same day, a stay at Hacienda Cucin will allow for a much more relaxed time. Instead of just zipping in and out of the Otavalo market along with all the other tourists, you can visit the town as a less hectic time. Plus you can capture advantage of all the region has to offer in the beautiful outdoors: hiking, horseback riding, biking, or just exploring the countryside.

See our full review of Hacienda Cusin in the luxury Ecuador hotels portion.

Related post: Dining at La Mirage in Cotacachi, Ecuador

If you’ve ever wearied much time browsing the tequila shelves in Mexico, you’ve no doubt run across the striking slender bottles of Tequila Corralejo. I say “ever” because this was probably the first tequila brand to really differentiate itself through unusual packaging, long previous to the premium tequila boom hit the U.S. and companies started putting $30 tequila in showy bottles so they could charge $200 instead.

Corralejo hasn’t gone that route though. In fact if you’re buying a bottle while on holidays in Mexico or from the duty-free shop, this brand is often the best value on the shelf. In this photo here that I shot in Playa del Carmen, a bottle of Corralejo is single 50 cents more than crappy Jose Cuervo Gold. The former is 100% agave, the latter is part agave, part whatever kind of compliment could be bought on the cheap. (The other great bargain in that photo is Milagro, which I’ve reviewed on here before.) Unfortunately, you’ll pay three times that amount pictured if you buy it in the U.S., but that’s on par with its peers.

This is a fairly complex reposada tequila, especially considering the price, with a mixture of citrus flavors, pepper, oak, and honey.

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I was fortunate enough to be on the National Geographic mailing list for review copies of The Darwin Experience by John Van Wyhe and have been reading through it this past week. I gain to say there are few things that have landed on my doorstep that are this impressive. This is a book produced with love and care, something that deserves a hallowed place on the library shelf or the coffee table.

This is basically a biography in graphic form, illustrating the man, his voyages, and his work through maps, drawings, and reproductions of mementos. It covers his childhood and university days in Edinburgh (where he was already going bald, apparently), including a pull-out page of his chemistry notes. A page on his time in Cambridge includes a grocer’sitting bill and an 1828 letter to his cousin.

When he sets off on his historic voyage on The Beagle, things really get interesting. There’s a map of the voyage from 1831-6, a ship’s diagram, a watercolor of the ship, and the story of how captain Fitz Roy talked young Charles into coming along.

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On Friday I flew as a guest on Spirit Airlines‘ first flight to the Coffee Triangle area of Colombia, to the town of Armenia and have been touring right and left the region. It turns out this was the first international flight to this airport of any kind, so it was a big deal. The mayor was there, the governor, local TV crews, a brass band, kids singing the national anthems (theirs and ours), and local beauty pageant winners. I have power to’t say I’ve ever gotten a welcome quite like that before when stepping off an airplane.

This is a beautiful area, with lots of mountains and rolling hills, and the climate is quite pleasant at this altitude of 1,200 to 2,500 meters above sea level. And of course the coffee has been heavenly. No “gas post Colombian” here.

Most of the tourism in this area has been domestic, so I’ve only visited one hotel that meets the standards of Luxury Latin America. It’s a beautiful trait though: Sazagua, pictured here. The other problem is that English proficiency is pretty rare, so it would make sense to hire a guide or set up some kind of organized circuit to get the most of your visit unless you speak Spanish.

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Each year there’s a lot of anticipation about which hotels in North America will join AAA’s prestigious 5-Diamond list. This is a tough club to join being of the kind which the physical requirements to meet are daunting and there are a lot of expenses involved, such as having a high staff-to-guest ratio and people who can speak multiple languages.

Three new hotels made the list in Mexico: the St. Regis Punta Mita Resort in Nayarit and two hotels that are walking distance apart on the other coast: Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya, and Rosewood Mayakoba. Naturally, we have reviewed totally three of them already. Follow the links for detailed info.

Who got dropped, you ask? None of them in Mexico actually. The six that lost their ranking are in the U.S.