The news out of Latin America is seldom boring. There’s always something going on in this vast region worth talking about. Here are some of the more unusual or noteworthy tidbits from the recent news.

Toilet paper shortage in Venezuela
It’s one thing to hear about the effects of socialism on a country’s economy, quite another when price controls and inefficiency materialize in a concrete way. In this case it’s a big toilet paper shortage going on in Venezuela. They may be used to running out of milk, butter, cooking oil, and other staples, but one 70-year-old shopper said, “Even at my age I’ve never seen this.”

Yet another reason for them to head to Panama or Colombia I suppose. Plenty of TP in those places.

Former Guatemala leader convicted of genocide
Guatemala made history this month when it convicted a former president of genocide, the first time a head of state has been convicted of such in his own country. Rios Montt ruled brutally for 17 months during the civil war of the early 1980s. His troops attached Maya Ixil villages with full force, at least 1,771 deaths directly attributed to him at the trial. He got 80 years, so he’ll die in prison. This is on top of four soldiers getting convictions of more than 6,000 years in total a few years ago.

Goodbye to one of Argentina’s worst
In a related story, Argentina’s Disappearer-in-Chief just died at 87. Jorge Rafael Videla is said to be responsible for at some 20,000 deaths in the late 1970s and it was reportedly his idea to take the children from mothers, have then killed, and let the babies be raised by military families. Don’t rest in peace…

Belize road crew bulldozes Maya pyramid for road fill
In a story that prompted outrage in and outside of Belize, a road crew looking for fill materials took heavy equipment to an unexcavated pyramid in Belize that dated back several thousand years. They destroyed the structure and it gets worse: the company’s owner is (was?) a legislative candidate.

Brazil goes halfway to same-sex marriage
A supreme court ruling in Brazil effectively legalizes gay marriage in Latin America’s biggest country. While it could still potentially be overturned by legislation, this ends some confusion and brings Brazil closer to the policies of its neighbors Argentina and Uruguay.

The beach at Infinity Bay, Honduras

A couple times a year I like to highlight which pages of Luxury Latin America travelers are clicking on the most. It changes a lot from one quarter to the next depending on where our readers are headed and who’s in the news (good or bad), and usually it’s a bit surprising who makes it up to the top.

The most popular pages are the portal ones, like the main luxury tours page or luxury travel in Costa Rica, but here are the individual ones people planning a vacation landed on the most so far this year.

Luxury hotel and resort reviews:

5) Infinity Bay in Roatan, Honduras
4) Cayo Espanto near Ambergris Caye, Belize
3) Jicaro Island Ecolodge near Granada, Nicaragua
2) Azul in Ambergris Caye, Belize
1) Hotel Garzon in Uruguay

Mendoza wine country, Argentina

Luxury tours in Latin America:

5) Getting Pampered in the Spas of Argentina
4) Touring the Wine Districts of Chile Near Santiago
3) Touring the Best of Mendoza Wine Country, Argentina
2) Trekking From Lodge to Lodge to Machu Picchu, Peru
1) The Coffee Triangle of Colombia

So from all this I’ll conclude you want to head to a beach, get pampered, or drink some wine. Except for that hardy bunch going trekking through the Andes Mountains…

One of my greatest family travel memories is when the three of us stayed at Lapa Rios Ecolodge on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. Sure, the views were stunning and the food was good, but what made it special was the incredible array of wildlife we saw. For the story and photos, see this tour feature: A Wealth of Wildlife in Costa Rica.

It looks like generations to come will be able to have the same experience and the abundant animals will be able to keep moving freely in the area. The nature reserve the owners purchased many years ago now has a permanent conservation easement that will live on through any subsequent sales. Here are some details from the official announcement.

The Lapa Rios Reserve, some 900 acres in size, provides an important buffer for neighboring Corcovado National Park and serves as a wildlife corridor for the incredible array of species endemic to the region. Because of its intense biodiversity, the Osa is one of the last strongholds of the jaguar in Central America, and is home to all four Costa Rican monkey species, including the squirrel monkey, white-faced capuchin, mantled howler and spider monkey. Other Reserve inhabitants include the three-toed sloth, tamandua anteater, Baird’s tapir, poison dart frogs, 350+ bird species, as well as the venomous fer de lance and bushmaster snakes.

The founding Lewises wanted to take something personal and make it permanent and everlasting, regardless of who holds title to the land or owns the ecolodge business. That’s where the conservation easement comes in. Undertaken in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Costa Rican land conservation organization CEDARENA, the easement turns the Lewises personal commitment into rainforest conservation with a binding agreement that ensures the Lapa Rios Reserve is preserved in perpetuity.

The easement comes with strict guidelines around land use. It prohibits all extractive activities, such as mining, forestry and hunting, as well as further  building expansion, even putting a cap on trail construction to a maximum of 15,000 metres (there are currently 10 km of trail in the Reserve.) At the same time the easement encourages both scientific and educational activities on the reserve, which fits well within the Lewis’ goal of setting a conservation example and their guiding motto: “No matter how you cut it, a rainforest left standing is worth more.”

See our full review of Lapa Rios Ecolodge and at the end there’s a link to the resort’s website.

We’ve been spending a good bit of time in fast-growing Colombia recently and for good reasons. The country’s tourism numbers are increasing rapidly as people update their expectations and new hotels are going up at a frenetic pace.

Our latest tour story, from writer Judith Fein, is about a return to Colombia with Adventure Associates, going beyond the usual first-timer’s route to dive deeper into the culture and the people.

She landed in Bogota, as most visitors do who aren’t flying direct to Cartagena, but her trip took her to interesting villages far away, including Villa de Leyva. Well, after taking part in a cooking course in the capital.

The city of Medellin gets a bad rap, like many cities where the reputation of 10 or 20 years ago is a very hard perception to change. Really this is an attractive, vibrant city with low crime and a favorite for expatriates choosing Colombia. Nevertheless, our correspondent did go on a Pablo Escobar tour after returning from the Antioquia region.

See the full story here: Cooking, Culture, and Cobblestones in Colombia

Ron Medellin is the one brand you’re sure to run across while traveling in Colombia. So you might want to stick to cocktails.

Last year I attended a big travel trade show in Cartagena, Colombia. At the big opening night bash, sponsored by Avianca Airlines, all the liquor on offer was imported, including rum from Cuba.

A few months ago I mentioned this to someone in the travel industry in Colombia, that I found this quite strange considering the place and the host. He replied,”Well, have you tasted our rum?”

I chuckled and replied, “Only the kind that comes in a box.”

He said I should go try their Ron Medellin brand, but not to spend too much money on it. Once we started talking about some of the fine rums from Central America, I could tell he had a good frame of reference and didn’t hold the home team’s in high regard.

I could only find the 3-year version in the shops I went into in the historic district of Cartagena when I was there a couple months ago, so I bought a bottle of that and tried it, neat and in a cocktail. Then I tried the 8-year neat as well in a bar.

The verdict? The cheapest version is okay in a cocktail, especially by the pool or at a beach bar, but it’s a far inferior run to drink straight compared to most others you find between here and Guatemala.

We often speak of wine and spirits with words like “structured,” “balanced,” and having a complexity of flavor. The problems that mar the Ron Medellin 3-year touch on each of these, with off-balance flavors that seem to emphasize what’s wrong over what’s right. There are tones in this rum I haven’t smelled or tasted elsewhere, some of which I can’t even describe. I just know they don’t belong there. There’s a little maple, some pecans, and some chocolate—but more like baking chocolate than Godiva.

Anything this copper-colored after just three years in barrels makes me wonder a bit too. Notice how all three versions above are the same color? That’s just not right…

The additional five years in those barrels helps a lot: the 8-year version has smoothed out many of the rough spots and tastes more conventional. Still not great neat, but on the rocks it’s okay. In this one you get more power from the traditional caramel and toffee notes, tempered by more time in contact with oak.

I didn’t get a chance to try the 12-year version, and would be hesitant to buy a whole bottle of it at double the price, but I’ll give it a try next time I see it in a bar.

In conclusion, you can find better rum from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Venezuela—as well as a few Caribbean islands like Barbados—but if you’re looking for something to mix with Coke or pineapple juice on vacation in Colombia, root root for the home team and go for Medellin rum.