There are a lot of elements that go into the price of a flight, from staff costs to government fees to landing gate charges at airports. One big variable—and the ones most airlines use to justify all kinds of add-ons and extras—is the price of fuel. Well how much does it really cost to carry each passenger a thousand miles through the air?

Spirit Air is doing its best to figure that out and share it with its customers. It has published a handy dandy chart showing how much it costs them in fuel to go a certain range of distance. You can see the full breakdown at this link, but here are a few examples:

• A short hop of 400 to 599 miles costs them $21.67 at current fuel rates
• Going 800 to 999 miles is a shade over $30
• Their longest hauls of 2000+ miles costs $78 per passenger in fuel

So to put that in real terms, for Ft. Lauderdale to Cancun, fuel is only around $22. Flying all the way to Lima from there, fuel is more than $78 per passenger. All these rates assume an 80% load factor, so if the flight is jammed full the actual cost per person would be a bit less. I’m not sure how cargo is figured in. And what if my seatmate weighs twice as much as I do? Should those who can’t fit in a regular airline seat multiply by two?

Think about this next time you see a $300 “fuel surcharge” on your legacy airline flight to Europe. Where’s that money really going? Why isn’t it just included in the price of the ticket?

When you see these fuel prices though, it makes Spirit’s cheap fares look even better, especially if you’re part of that $9 fare club. If you can snag one of those rates, you are flying for less than the cost of the fuel, never mind all the other costs the airline bears. So smile when you pay that checked baggage fee or a swipe your credit card for a cup of coffee in the air. Chances are those fees might not even get you back to even.

If you just want to get from point A to point B and have plenty of cash left over for spending after arrival, Spirit Air serves many Latin American destinations besides Cancun and Lima. They’ll get you to Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and four locations in Colombia.

More on airlines serving Latin America. Thanks to SmarterTravel for the original post on this.

As you pick up some roses for your sweetie this Valentine’s Day and pay twice the rate of the rest of the year, take solace in the fact that they went through a lot to get here. Those pretty flowers you are holding were probably growing in the soil of Ecuador or Colombia just a few days ago.

There’s a bit in the Quito and the High Valley story we published recently about a rose plantation I visited near Otavalo. There I saw the process in action, people working against the clock in the short window they have between cutting and shipping.

Basically the process works like this. The flowers grow until they are exactly the right shape, the workers moving through the rows each day cutting just those particular ones. They move on a cart to the cleaning area, where some of the excess leaves are stripped and they are cut to a uniform length. Then the flowers moved to a refrigerated packing room where like colors are sorted and packed together. They go into a colder refrigerated room and are packed into boxes. The packed roses go onto a refrigerated truck where they make the journey to Quito’s airport.

Each night thousands of boxes of roses leave the Quito airport and fly to the U.S., Russia, and Europe. On the other end they are loaded onto more refrigerated trucks to go to distribution centers. After that they get to your local florist then onto a dining room table or cubicle desk. All within a few days so they don’t start wilting.

So what are you paying for when you lay out the cash for those flowers? A little for the flowers themselves, but mostly for a lot of coordinated shipping.

Want some chocolates instead? Ecuador won’t mind. They ship out plenty of cocoa as well.

If you put cash into the U.S. market or in European funds early in 2009, you had a very good year for that money.

But if you put cash to work in Latin America, you had an especially good reason to pop the bubbly on New Year’s Eve. According to this Wall Street Journal article, Latin America was the standout region of the world in 2009 for investors. “Mexico’s IPC index approached all-time highs in December and Argentina’s benchmark index more than doubled.”

As in the rest of the world, this didn’t come without a roller coaster ride though. The MSCI Latin America Index rose 98% on the year, which looks huge until you realize that it went down 53% the year before. So if you were in that market at the beginning of 2008, you are pretty much back to even unless you were actively moving the investments around.

Here’s how a few markets did in 2009:

Argentina +115%
Brazil +82.7%
Colombia +53.5%
Chile 50.7%
Mexico +43.5%
Canada +30.7%
USA (Dow) +18.8%

Brew a strong cup of joe and then check out our newest travel feature: Exploring the Coffee Triangle of Colombia.

This is a region of Colombia that doesn’t get many foreign tourists—yet. That means prices are about half what they are in Cartagena for comparable hotels and restaurants. Plus it’s a beautiful mountainous region and you don’t have to look very hard to find a good cup of coffee.

For more visuals check out the photo/video slideshow I posted earlier or see this professionally edited Colombia video from writer Lisa Loverro, who was on the same trip with me.

We just posted our review of the best little hotel in the Coffee Triangle region of central Colombia: Sazagua Hotel in Pereira.

This is a stylish, artistic boutique hotel that is apt to please any cultured, well-traveled guest. It’s a clear step above most of the city business hotels and rustic hacienda hotels dotting the region. Sazagua is a visual delight throughout and its Prana Spa is especially impressive for a hotel of this size. The upscale restaurant here has a good reputation as one of the best in the area.

See our full review of Sazagua Hotel in Colombia.