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…

Having a new pope come from Argentina should be good news when it comes to numbers. Canada and the USA combined have 86 million Catholics. South America has 339 million.

Tired of hearing Argentina’s politicians’ sabre-rattling about the Falkland Islands, the locals went to the polls to vote in a referendum. Only 3 out of 1,513 voted not to continue under British rule. Turnout was 92%.

Wholesale coffee prices have tumbled and it’s creating major headaches in Colombia. Though you haven’t seen it trickle down to your local Starbucks, prices are down 50% in two years.

United Airlines just began weekly year-round service between Washington-Dulles International Airport and both Guatemala City, Guatemala, and San Jose, Costa Rica. The airline also will begin weekly year-round service between its Chicago O’Hare hub and San Jose the same day. Check prices on international airline finder Vayama.com.

If you want to assign blame for Mexico’s border region violence to someone, U.S. gun dealers would be a good place to start. A new study found last month that some 250,000 guns a year are heading south from border states, spurred by lax gun sale laws. There are more than three gun dealers for every mile of the 1,969 mile border.

Chile is now leading the world in astronomy, at least in terms of equipment superiority. Scientists have completed the world’s largest radio telescope array, bigger than all existing ones added together, in the Atacama Desert region. The resolution of what it can see is 10X that of the Hubble telescope.

The Association of Brazilian Supermarkets announced that it would not sell beef from cattle raised on cleared rainforest land. Critics say it will be hard to enforce since no government agency is monitoring origin, but it’s hopefully a start in turning the tide of clearing rainforest land for farming. Cattle farming is the biggest driver of deforestation.

There’s a new strain of dengue fever hitting Brazil, with more than 200,000 people being infected just in the first two months of this year. There’s no immunity in place in the population for this new strain, so anyone traveling to areas with mosquitoes in Brazil needs to be super-diligent with the DEET and clothing using BugsAway or Insect Shield.

Bolivia can keep growing coca leaves for workers to chew. The country got a special dispensation from the UN to legalize unrefined coca within its borders only.

We’ve long had a review of Chilean tour company Explora’s Salto Chico Lodge in the Torres del Paine national park, also listed sometimes as Explora Patagonia. It’s got one of the most fantastic mountain views in the world and is on the doorstep of one of the planet’s greatest hiking destinations.

You can cover a lot more ground on horseback than by foot, however, and Explora has formally launched a new equestrian tour program. One of our contributors was fortunate enough to be one of the first to experience it. Here’s one half day in a four-day program:

Before lunch my fate is an 11-mile ride. We begin by crossing the deep Chinas River, climbing up and down hillsides and passing the Laguna Jara Cruce.

Our destination is the remote Estancia 2 de Enero, a farm belonging to the owner of Explora. We stop here for mate (a typical herbal tea favored by gauchos on both the Argentinian and Chilean sides of the border) before cantering back along the high ridges following the scent of lunch. Guanacos (Patagonian llamas) disperse as we pass, some jumping over a fence in perfect line.

The rides cross pampas to icebergs and glaciers, alpine lakes and rivers, with expert guides customizing the itinerary depending on the skill and experience of the riders. As with the equestrian excursions the company runs in the Atacama desert, guests are assured of getting the best equipment and healthy horses used to carrying strangers.

See our full feature story (with gorgeous photos) on touring Patagonia by horseback with Explora.

With the opening of new Palacio Astoreca, luxury travelers have another luxury hotel option in Chile’s port city near several wine-producing regions.

Valparaiso has long been a popular destination for those traveling in Chile, but it’s also been lacking in high-end places to spend the night. Astoreca changes all that and let’s hope it’s the start of a trend. (The city could certainly use an influx of visitors to fund the work that needs to be done to keep the remaining aging funiculars running.)

You’ve probably read about this hotel already if you subscribe to any glossy travel magazines. The thing is, they were probably going off a press release and had never stepped inside. We’ve got a person on the scene in Chile, however, so our detailed review is from someone who has stayed there and eaten there.

The “stayed” part is all about the building: a restored 1920′s fairy tale house that looks like it came out of a children’s book drawing. Perched on a hillside—as most of the houses are here—it has terrific views over the rooftops to the harbor.

This is no frumpy B&B, however, as some original elements like parquet floors are combined with sleek interiors worthy of a design magazine shoot.

The “eaten” part is what is bringing curious diners from Santiago in: the chef’s previous posting was at Spain’s famous El Bulli restaurant. How’s that for pedigree? Our reviewer found the presentation and cuisine lived up to the hype.

The pool here is inside, giving our long-running featured Valparaiso hotel Casa Higueras an edge in the outdoor lounging category, but this one does have an outdoor hot tub.

See our full review of Palacio Astoreca boutique hotel in Chile.

There’s a lot of exotic mystery packed into the title of this post, but it refers to a luxury adventure tour story we just posted on an Explora Travesia tour from Bolivia to Chile. It goes across the Uyuni Salt Flat, through the desert visiting lagoons, and ends up in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. (You can do it in a reverse direction as well.)

For a jaded traveler like me who is hard to surprise, this adventure tour was a pure delight from when the driver picked me up in Potosi until I reluctantly checked out of Explora Atacama hotel after three days at the end. All the details were done right, the food was terrific, and Explora’s series of “shelters” along the way provided middle-of-nowhere seclusion with hot showers and wine. This was “glamping” defined: in a sleeping bag on a cot, but with feather pillows, nice toiletries, and a million stars with no light pollution.

It’s getting harder to get away from it all, to get off the grid and leave the constant nagging of communication requests behind, but this Travesia tour takes you into raw nature where there’s no ringing cell phone and no status updates. Just the beauty of sky, earth, water, and animals. You see every star in the sky, not just the ones bright enough to poke through the light pollution. The prominent noises are the wind and your own heartbeat.

Then when you get back to civilization at Explora Atacama, you spend your days on more adventures, biking to a salt lagoon, hiking through desert canyons, soaking in hot springs, riding horses, or climbing mountains. Sitting around watching TV it is not.

Call it “soft adventure” or “luxury adventure,” but I managed to eat well and also lose a couple pounds on this trip. Nice.

See our full tour story on Crossing the Salt Flat and Deserts into Chile.