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.

Panama City was the first place to see a Trump hotel in Latin America and now it’s the first place to get a Waldorf-Astoria, the highest luxury brand from Hilton, named after the iconic original in New York City.

The new Waldorf Astoria Panama is in a prime location in the business district of booming Panama City. If you know the lay of the land there, it’s near the Intercontinental and a stone’s throw from Le Meridien Panama. It’s right by Calle Uruguay, home to a few hopping blocks of clubs and restaurants.

There were still a few workmen putting finishing touches on the spa and some of the residences when I visited a few weeks ago, but the rest of the hotel was ready for prime time and was looking great. There are plenty of flashier hotels in town for rock star personalities: this Waldorf Astoria is more like a younger version of the Bristol, with modified mid-century modern design elements and lots of gold accents done with class instead of crass.

It’s safe to say that these are the most advanced, tricked-out rooms in the capital (until something newer comes along) and you won’t be crawling around on the floor looking for an electrical outlet. Rooms are all a good size as well, plus you have the option of getting one of the residences in the rental pool to have an apartment feel for longer stays.

This new luxury hotel is a great addition to Panama’s capital and for those wanting to earn or cash in Hilton points, it’s an important new option in the “Crossroads of the Americas.”

See our full review of Waldorf Astoria Panama City.

We try not to spend much time covering the ins and outs of the hotel industries as the signs on the door change often throughout the world. But two prominent hotels we’ve reviewed in Panama changed from independent properties to Marriott brands recently, so we’ve updated our reviews.

The major one is the Buenaventura Resort on the Pacific coast of Panama, opened with all kinds of hype and pizazz before the owners of the Bristol in Panama City found that booking beach resort rooms at high rates was harder than doing so in the city. So Marriott signed on to manage the place and tap into their international marketing machine. If you’ve got lots of Marriott points, you can now book a beach resort in Panama. See our review of the JW Marriott Golf and Resort.

The other is the former Finisterre Suites in Panama City, which also opened with a bang and then promptly started looking for an international brand to partner up with when the expected bookings didn’t materialize. It’s now the Marriott Executive Apartments Panama, with the old name tacked onto the end.

In general it’s as good as the old one, with a seldom-used spa and poolside bar gone but otherwise looking exactly the same. And again, if you’re a frequent Marriott traveler, now you can cash in some points for a suite.

As a veteran travel writer and editor, I don’t get surprised and awed very easily anymore. I wasn’t expecting much when on a tour through Colombia, the guide said we would be visiting a “salt cathedral” outside of Bogota.

I’d been to the giant Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia a few months earlier, where some buildings are made from salt blocks. I was expecting something similar, an overhyped attraction that was really just a chapel made of salt.

Wow, was I wrong. I’m kind of glad I knew nothing about the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral before arriving because that would have eliminated the surprise and awe I felt when I walked into a giant underground chamber that can holds thousands of people for Sunday mass. It’s really spectacular.

This is a well-designed and creative repurposing of place that would have probably just been abandoned. In underground passages that have been mined out to remove tons of (mostly industrial) salt, a place like this would normally have been blocked off and forgotten. In this case, it has become one of the region’s biggest tourist attractions. It’s even got a giant ballroom that would make most hotel owners drool, plus a VIP room for executive meetings.

The entrance is through this disco-lit half-circle passage, which feels like a cross between a movie set and a carnival ride.

Once inside, the mood is sober: 14 stations of the cross are set up as small chapels, some in small nooks, others situated in long mine shafts. They’re abstract and powerful, with nary a Jesus or Mary anywhere: just light and symbolism.

After you go through all these you get to the payoff: a soaring church space that looks incredible from every angle. The main hall is pictured here, but there are two other naves almost as large as this one. Standing on the alter here, with a choir singing in this high-ceiling place, it must be a trippy place to be a priest.

Exiting, you get to stop being serious. You can buy popcorn (plenty of salt available), peruse the gift shop stalls, or drink a Colombia coffee 180 meters under the surface.

If you want to nitpick, this isn’t really a “cathedral” since there’s no bishop, but it is a functioning church—a huge one at that. And while I’ve seen more than my share of churches in Latin America, none of them have looked anything like this!

The official site is here in Spanish only, or you can see more at the Colombia Tourism site in English.