Belize carrier Maya Air just announced two flights a day between Belize City and Cancun, Mexico, beginning on July 8. This news couldn’t come at a better time for me since I was not looking forward to taking a bus from Belize City all the way up to Cancun at the end of my Belize trip this summer with my family. I’m sure many other travelers are breathing a huge sigh of relief as well and gladly opening up their wallet to pay the $189 advance one-way fare.

This will also make it much easier on Europeans, who have many flights to Cancun but not so many to Belize. A trip to Belize from Europe usually involves a stopover in U.S. airport, which is no fun for anyone these days.

Following this link for Maya Air’s flight schedule and rates.

Thanks to the folks at Turneffe Flats island fishing resort in Belize for this tidbit from their newsletter.

As you can imagine, the Mexican luxury hotel operators have seen their business fall off a cliff in the past few weeks. Thanks to the 24-hour news updates about the pandemic that never was, destination weddings got canceled, business travel stopped, and several airlines canceled flights for those who still wanted to visit.

The irony is, the places hit the hardest haven’t seen a whiff of swine flu. So if you are looking for the deal of a decade right now, the top-end hotels in places like Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos are ready to throw everything but the kitchen sink into your reservation to entice you back. Here are a few examples.

At Las Ventanas in San Jose del Cabo, book three nights at currently discounted rates and get:

- Upgrade at check-in if available
- Complimentary breakfast for two daily
- $200 resort credit per stay

(And they’ll provide a “personal motorcycle escort” if you are driving down from the U.S.)

Book five nights at One & Only Palmilla in San Jose del Cabo and get:

- Two additional nights complimentary.
- Complimentary continental breakfast daily
- Two complimentary rounds of golf
- A $500 resort spending credit valid towards dining, spa or more golf.

Las Alamandas, one of my favorite hotels in the world, is offering an incredible $370 per night rate through August. This resort on 1,500 acres of pristine coastline is the kind of private hideaway that A-list celebrities fly into on their private jet to escape photographers and be alone. Be a VIP without spending like one. (Mention promotional code LAS1.)

Grand Velas in Nuevo Vallarta is probably the best large all-inclusive resort in Latin America, a major cut above the usual mold. They’re running specials now though of $300 to $352 per person all-inclusive in a suite, with two kids (up to 12 years) free, free greens fees, a 25-minute massage for everyone, and more.

These are just a few examples of how you can score luxury for less right now, but see all our reviews of luxury hotels in Mexico and then go surf around for deals. If you don’t see a great one, make an offer. High-end hotels don’t like to discount their rates too much, so they’re throwing in all kinds of extras instead. If you’re booking anything in Mexico over the next few months, you should definitely not settle for the room alone. They really want your business right now.

In case the Detroit 3 money begging hearings weren’t bad enough for you, there was plenty of equally depressing news in Latin America to tune into also this week.

Once again, we’ve got a cruise ship wreck off Antarctica. I saw this first on the Expert Cruiser blog, but here’s the latest from the BBC. It’s a Panamanian-flagged ship from the tour company Antarpply Expeditions. Crews from Chile and Argentina are on the way to save the day. The ship is not in danger of sinking, but this will probably not be the last incident: “Tourist travel to Antarctica is believed to have increased five-fold in the last 15 years.”

Speaking of Argentina, did you hear the one about the president wanting to force a foreign company to sell themselves for one peso? Unfortunately, this is not a joke and it applies to the Spanish holding company of two airlines: Aerolinas Argentina and Austral. Those two airlines have a lock on local traffic, with 80% of all seats. Get the whole sordid story here. New Argentine financial crisis meltdown, here we come!

Mexican cement company CEMEX met the same fate in Venezuela, but isn’t taking it lying down. They’ve taken their case to the World Bank’s arbitration panel. Meanwhile, Chavez has made it clear he hopes to be president for life. Lord help Venezuela: they’ll need it.

Some disasters are not man-made. Hold off on going to Bocas del Toro: massive flooding has hit parts of Panama and Costa Rica.

Have a good weekend?

It’s been awhile since I did any Latin American spirits taste test posts on here, so it’s time to pull out my reliable duty-free favorite Ron Zacapa. “Ron” is “rum” in these parts, but Mr. Zacapa is the king when it comes to Central America. You may see a local brand from Costa Rica or Panama here and there and Nicaragua’s Flor de Cana wins the prize for the best distribution. But if you’re going for quality, reach for the rum from—of all places—Guatemala.

I’m personally partial to the 15-year version, which seems to have the perfect balance of sweetness, caramel, butterscotch, and oak. It envelops you with the comfort of a warm blanket and a fireplace at the first sip and lingers on the finish like a night you never want to end. It’s smooth, warm, and elegant, with the complexity you would expect from something made well and aged well. There’s none of that typical rum “black strap bite” you get from its Nicaraguan counterpart and you can sip it neat all night long.

There’s a 23-year version as well, though for my taste buds it seems like too much of a good thing. The oak is much more prominent and it loses some of the character you can taste in the version that’s not almost a quarter-century old. For Scotch stored in cold climates the extra years can help, but in the hot tropics, there’s a limit to how long is too long.

The brilliant thing about this rum is the price: in duty-free shops you can commonly find the 15-year version for around $20, which is one of the world’s screaming spirits bargains. Even the 23-year version is often on sale for less than $35, fancy wood box included. If you’re heading home from Latin America and are looking for an appropriate gift, this one will elicit some appreciative smiles later. If you’re buying a gift for someone in Central America, this is a sure bet.

In the June ‘08 issue of Conde Nast Traveler there’s a rundown of the best golf resorts in the world, as chosen by subscribers. The very top spot goes to one in Mexico: Four Seasons Punta Mita.

In all fairness though, If you’ve ever actually taken one of those Conde Nast Traveler reader surveys, you must be someone with a lot of time and patience. Last time I tried it—in the interest of professional research even—I gave up halfway through. I had already spent 17 minutes on it, was 29 screens in, and looked like I was still only halfway done. (Who knows, there’s no indicator to tell you.)

So I’m always a bit skeptical of the results, since people who really travel a lot and get paid the big bucks aren’t usually very willing to give up an hour of their well-paid time to fill out a survey. That leaves the people who have nothing better to and the ones who are forced to do it by their employers. (Hey, get subscriptions for all your staffers, have them each go in and do the survey, and voila–you have a close to perfect score!)

But back to the results. Let’s assume anyone could argue about any of these since very few people have played and stayed are more than a handful, but here are the ones in Mexico that scored highly in addition to the Four Seasons near Puerto Vallarta.

Westin Resort and Spa – Los Cabos, Mexico
One & Only Palmilla – Los Cabos, Mexico

You can read about both these in our article on Golfing in Los Cabos.

That leaves out a lot of stunning places, like the Tamarindo golf resort between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo and a few others at Los Cabos, not to mention Llao Llao in Patagonia or, say, half of Scotland. But naturally, the problem with reader surveys is that places that draw the biggest crowds are going to get more votes. (Most of the resorts were in the U.S.)