Laura Chinchilla easily soared to victory yesterday and becomes Costa Rica’s first female president.

Not so fortunate were any American tourists in the country who wanted to drink beer while watching the Saints beat the Colts in the Super Bowl—no alcohol on election day. Quite a few countries do this, apparently to keep the drunks from getting violent or forgetting to vote.

She was the vice president before, so it should be an orderly transition. Transitions usually are orderly in Costa Rica anyway, a country that somehow manages to be more civilized and progressive than anyone to the north. The country without an army has had uninterrupted democracy for 60 years now, without one coup or uprising.

See our hotels and features for luxury travel in Costa Rica.

About a month ago I hand-delivered a postcard I had carried a very long way. From a dot of an island in the southern Pacific Ocean to a small city in Virginia. From Post Office Bay to a parent back home.

You see Post Office Bay, on Floreana Island in the Galapagos, was set up in the sailing ship days. Back then crews were away from home for years, with no way to contact loved ones at home except by mail. Getting that mail home relied on other ships, however, so sailors would pick up mail headed to where they were going and take it there themselves.

The tradition continues today, ironically now working better and faster than the real Ecuadorian postal service, which charges an amazing $2 and up to send a postcard or letter internationally. The cards we stuck in the mailbox at post office bay got to their recipients in a couple weeks.

I took longer delivering mine as I waited until I was driving through Virginia for the holiday break. I spent the night in Lynchburg (at the wonderful Craddock Terry Hotel) and hand-delivered my postcard to its surprised recipients—pictured here. Their son and his family had toured the Galapagos right before I was there and said, “This was an amazing trip. It’ll be even more amazing if this card makes it.”

It did, and I was almost as satisfied as a swashbuckling sailor.

If you’re heading out on a Galapagos cruise, don’t forget your address book!

A few months back I was fortunate enough to get that “once in a lifetime experience” sailing around the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. For many tourists that’s the whole focus and Quito gets a day in the itinerary—if they don’t just fly from Guayaquil to the islands instead.

That’s a shame really, because Ecuador’s capital really is worth some extra time. When I go back to Ecuador someday, I want to spend at least a week in that region, with a few nights at the lovely estate hotels like Hacienda Cusin and Hacienda Zuleta.

We just posted a story on the time I did get to spend there, with a couple days in the city and an excursion out to the nearby Andean market towns: Quito and the High Valley of Ecuador. It’s a story of food and flowers, of masses and markets, from the historic center to a town of leather crafters. If a trip to Ecuador is in your future at some point, I hope this convinces you to not pass Quito by. Not all Latin American cities are pleasant places for tourists, but this is one that’s definitely worth the lingering. If you get in touch with Metropolitan Touring, you’ll be in good hands.

When I was at the Luxury Travel Expo last month I had the pleasure of hearing a short presentation from Kim MacQuarrie, a Peru travel expert and author of the book Last Days of the Incas. A few lucky souls will get to spend far more time with him this year actually traveling through Peru: he is leading a tour with Geographic Expeditions that is centered on this history of the Incas.

We now have a lively and informative interview with Kim MacQuarrie posted in our interviews section. He talks about the research that went into his book, the upcoming tours, Incan architecture, and his favorite hotel in the country. As someone who lived with a recently-contacted tribe of indigenous Amazonians and has since covered many parts of Peru that few people ever visit, he knows this fascinating country inside-out.

“One tends to think of Peru in terms of Cuzco, the Incas, and Machu Picchu. But of course, there is much, much more. Around 60% of Peru is tropical rainforest, and large portions of that are virtually unexplored regions. In fact, there are still a handful of uncontacted tribes that roam there.

The long strip of desert on the coast is as dry as the surface of the Moon, with virtually no rainfall whatsoever. The ruins of thousands of years of ancient civilizations are buried there—pyramids, monuments, fortresses, tombs. Pretty incredible, really. In fact, so many pyramids and tombs have been discovered in Peru in the last 20-30 years that people more and more are referring to Peru as the “Egypt of the Americas.” One ancient city that was discovered as recently as 2001 is nearly five thousand years old—the oldest city in the Americas. As old as the Step Pyramids in Egypt.”

See our full Last Days of the Incas interview here.

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday about how U.S. hotels are dropping the word “resort” from their name because it’s causing them to miss out on corporate booking deals.

“The Ballantyne Resort in Charlotte, N.C., changed its name during the summer to the Ballantyne Hotel & Lodge after several corporate clients indicated it would have a better chance of landing their business if it weren’t called a resort. Same for the Westin Stonebriar near Dallas, formerly the Westin Stonebriar Hotel & Resort. Ditto the Renaissance Orlando at Sea World, no longer the Renaissance Orlando Resort at Sea World.”

What’s hilarious about this is that it’s all a fake-out to get around silly rules instituted by some silly boss. Because of the AIG fallout last year, corporations are afraid to appear to be living it up too much, so they’re telling their meeting planners to not seek bids from any “resorts.” So the hotels are responding by doing a workaround: changing their name.

Nothing else has changed of course. The spa and golf course are still there, the excursion programs are still in place, the execs will surely be having just as many poolside cocktails as they would have before.

But now it’s not a resort. So we can all feel better about things…now that the letterhead has been reprinted.

See the full article here.