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.

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.

I spent the past couple days at the annual Luxury Travel Expo in Las Vegas, rubbing shoulders with hundreds of travel agents and about as many industry exhibitors. Naturally I was there to find out what was new and interesting in travel to Latin America and I didn’t have to try very hard. Latin America was the belle of the ball. Many tour company execs that cover the whole world are seeing the best growth in Latin America—for some it’s their only area of growth in this recession.

Plus tour companies seem to be coming around to the idea that this part of the world has not been tapped out and overcrowded like many other parts of the world. Countries like Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico kept popping up as ones where visitors are only scratching the surface of what’s available to see and do. You can still find true adventure away from the crowds without trying very hard. And of course you get far more for your money than in most other regions.

There was a presentation on Peru that surprised even me on the depth of attractions in one of my favorite countries. Most people probably wouldn’t guess it has the oldest city in the Americas—Caral—which goes back 5,000 years. Kim MacQuarrie,author of The Last Days of the Incas, says they’re finding new archeological sites almost every month. With three distinct regions (desert coast, high Andes, and Amazon jungle), Lake Titicaca, Colca Canyon, and enough Inca sites to keep you busy for weeks, this is a country that really lives up to the overused cliche “something for everyone.”

I was also thrilled to see the Mexico tourism presenter plus Signature Travel Network Executive VP Ignacio Maza both talk up the Yucatan interior around Merida, Uxmal, and Palenque. Mr. Maza’s best quote: “Getting off a cruise ship and taking a bus to Chichen Itza and back is like hopping off a ship at Coney Island, having a hot dog, then saying you’ve been to New York City.”

He also gave a rundown of other “new frontiers in Latin America” and I dare say the guy probably knows the region better than anyone, including me. Some of his other favorites are the highlands of Ecuador, Cartagena in Colombia, Ushuaia in Argentina, the Colca Canyon of Peru, the Atacama region of Chile, and Salvador/Bahia in Brazil.

In a panel that included the heads of Tauck and Abercrombie & Kent, time and again it came up that people are looking for unique experiences, deeper experiences, and a real sense of place. For all that, it’s hard to beat the countries of Latin America. As Maza said, this is “a region of superlatives,” a place that is for the curious traveler, not those who just dress to impress.

But here’s an interesting tidbit I picked up: 2 million visit Peru each year and 200,000 of them are luxury travelers, spend $500 or more a day.

Last week I posted our latest feature to the Luxury Latin America Tours section of the site: Cruising the Galapagos Islands with Angermeyer. Many of our feature stories are done by writers who work with us, but on this one I had the pleasure of taking the trip myself, spending a few days in Quito and the surroundings and about 10 days in the Galapagos.

As anyone who has been there will tell you, it’s an amazing experience. I’m used to wildlife trips where I am looking at birds through binoculars or seeing hippos and lions from the safety of a Land Rover vehicle. On the Galapagos Islands it’s a different story though. You can get up close and personal with these critters and they don’t attack or fear attacks from us.

The most difficult task in writing a story like this is picking out which photos to use. The ones that are up are only a fraction of the good ones available. If you want to see the whole array of highlights, including Blue-footed Boobies, sea lions, penguins, and more, see the slideshow below.