We don’t make it a habit to review inns with only five rooms, but we made an exception for this luxury home turned small hotel in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica. Latitude 10 is small, yes, and as with many resorts in Costa Rica, you are asked to sweat a bit for the sake of our planet’s future: no air conditioning here.

That’s part of what makes Costa Rica such a special place though, unmatched by pretty much any other destination on Earth except perhaps Bhutan. Here, taking care of the environment is not just some greenwashing slogan the PR people trot out to evoke an image of responsibility. Here most “green” resorts really are.

Latitude 10 is tucked into the foliage in a spot that’s easy to miss, with its own stretch of hidden beach running alongside it. And even if the resort is close to empty, you won’t be alone:

Wildlife is abundant: birds perch in the forest canopy; howler monkeys bellow; and iguanas scurry along tree trunks. Guests can breathe in the outdoors from cushioned wicker furniture decorated in earth tones and wooden tables with views to a salt water pool and the rolling Pacific surf.

All the suites here are private casitas and they come with a soundtrack of the rolling surf outside.

See our full review of Latitude 10 in Costa Rica and for other sustainable upscale lodging, check out our detailed reports on luxury hotels in Costa Rica. You can book some of them, including Latitude 10, through the the Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality group.

One of the nice things about traveling through Central America is that it’s easy to find really good rum for a ridiculously low price. I’m especially partial to the Ron Zacapa 15-year rum from Guatemala, but this 9-year Ron Centenario Conmemorativo bottle I picked up at a supermarket in Costa Rica has to be the smoothest rum that has ever passed my lips.

As with Scotch, Tequila, and Bourbon, different people have different taste preferences, so saying one rum or another is “the best” is a dicey proposition. If you like your rum smooth and sweet, however, with no molassas backbite and none of the off-kilter flavors you get with a big commercial brand like Bacardi, you won’t find a better souvenir to bring home from Costa Rica than Ron Centenario rum. (Trust me, there’s not a whole lot else worth buying there anyway when it comes to souvenirs apart from coffee and chocolate.)

This isn’t the most complex rum out there, so serious tipplers used to drinking their spirits neat all the time may find this one to be not challenging enough to sustain their interest. For me that’s part of the appeal, however. You can sip this for hours without killing your palate for a meal that’s going to follow and it’s sweet enough to serve as an after-dinner drink with dessert or coffee. It has a nice toasted caramel finish that seems to linger forever and it keeps your body as warm as a fireplace hearth without burning on the way down.

This is not a real overpowering rum, so you could use it for cocktails, but it seems like kind of a waste. I’d step down to the five- or seven-year versions that haven’t spent so much time in aging barrels. (Centenario’s barrels are used ones, often from bourbon, which also explains why this is smoother than rum going into new barrels.)

I paid all of $16 for a 750ml bottle of this divine rum, which puts this right up there with pineapples and cashews as one of the greatest values available in Costa Rica. I sipped it for a week and then left the remainder in my last hotel room for the maid. I hope she enjoyed it.

Maybe I overpaid even: I brought home a 12-year version of the same rum for only $18 from the airport duty-free shop. I haven’t opened it yet, so more on that one later…

The first time I visited Costa Rica three years ago, I saw way too much of it from the window of a van, while bouncing along bad roads. This time I vowed to spend more time where I wanted to be and to get a big picture view of the country from above. After four great flights on Nature Air, I’d definitely go the same route again.

Nature Air stands out in a lot of ways. It’s an independent operation (not part of a larger conglomerate) and is a carbon-neutral airline—the first one to be able to claim that designation. Whatever it can’t conserve or resuse, it offsets with carbon credits going to reforestation. I have trouble putting much faith in carbon credits normally, but in Costa Rica I saw a lot of reforestation work in motion, so it seems like more than an ambiguous concept.

The airline flies to 14 airports in its home country, plus three in Panama and one in Nicaragua. It hits all the places you would probably want to go, like Liberia, Tamarindo, Arenal, Quepos, Puerto Jiminez, Limon, and Tortuguero.

In a small country like Costa Rica, obviously these are not big jets making the runs. These are small prop planes holding either 7 or 19 passengers. Three of my flights were on the latter, but on my last one, from Quepos to San Jose, I was about to sit down as #6 when the pilot asked me to move—into the co-pilot seat! With a front view taking off and landing, that’s definitely a flight I won’t forget.

Don’t expect a lot of frills with these flights: that’s not the point. Many cost under $100 and none of them are very long. These are more like air taxis than commercial planes. There’s an in-flight magazine, but that’s about it. These planes are so small that the pilot just turns around and tells you how long the flight will be and if you’re stopping anywhere along the way to drop off and pick up passengers. Don’t worry—announcements are in both English and Spanish.

If the clouds aren’t too heavy, you’ll spend most of the time looking out the window anyway. This is a great way to see how lush and green the landscape is in Costa Rica and you can actually make out the topography and coastline that you’re seeing on a map.

When you go to book a flight on Nature Air, you’ll notice a wide disparity in fares. The two main variables are refund options and weight allowances. The weight allowances are so low at the bottom end that you pretty much have to be traveling with nothing more than an overnight bag: 15 pounds for checked luggage, 10 for your carry-on. If you have a laptop and an SLR camera in your carry-0n, you’re probably already over the limit. If you have these things plus a typical 22-inch wheelie bag, you’ll be coughing up an extra $40 at the counter. So get out a calculator and buy and pack accordingly after looking at the guidelines on their website.

Their Nature Vacations arm also books vacation packages with a variety of itineraries and styles (adventure, romantic, eco-tourism), all with domestic flights folded into the package prices. They know the country inside-out, plus the prices are competitive.

In a move designed to lure more Americans to Costa Rica, the country is designating certain areas with good medical facilities to be “retirement clusters.” The country wants to better compete with Panama and Mexico, both destinations that have lured lots of retirees with the combination of lower costs and good hospitals.

The Tico Times reported the story back in February (see a reprint here), so I’m late to the party on this, but it has interesting ramifications for the future. Anecdotal evidence says foreign investment in Costa Rica has declined during this recession, especially in areas where the property bubble had spread south. This government program aims to spread out that investment to more areas. The zones include Lake Arenal, Miramar, Cartago, and Rincon de la Vieja in Guanacaste. According to this story on Mathaba, getting residency should become easier.

The concept is simple, and includes slashing red tape to the minimum by providing one-stop residence permits at the Migration Directorate, so that foreigners, especially the well-heeled, can come to live in the country. Tax exemptions on real estate and vehicles are on offer, and a promotional campaign aimed at older adults abroad will be run by the Costa Rican Institute of Tourism (ICT).

Time will tell whether the plans turn to reality and whether there is longevity in the mix. Costa Rica was the first country to launch big incentives for foreign retirees, but the country has become less attractive over time as those incentives were removed and real estate prices kept rising. If this program actually works, it could turn things around.

Don’t pull a House Hunters International move though and just fly down for a weekend to buy a house. Spend some time in a Costa Rica rental first and do your homework. Keep in mind too that the U.S. dollar is at its lowest exchange rate in two years in Costa Rica, which may limit your bargaining power for anything sold by a local company. Take your time.

Get info here on luxury travel in Costa Rica.

Our hearts go out to those Chileans affected by the horrible 8.8 Richter Scale quake that hit the country over the weekend. For those in the center of the action, all the preparation in the world could only do so much.

Thankfully there was plenty of preparation, however, so the news has been quick to compare the relatively small death toll in Chile compared to what happened in Haiti. Most people have reacted by saying it was worse in Haiti because they are so poor. But Time magazine says those people have it backwards: some countries are just more committed to a government that has its act together, which is exactly why they aren’t poor.

“Chile is more developed because it’s doing things right. The same goes for Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica and a handful of other Latin American and Caribbean nations that have decided in the 21st century to stop running their societies like medieval fiefdoms. They’ve conceded that niceties like rule of law, accountability, education, entrepreneurial opportunity and administrative efficiency actually have merit. And they’ve stopped making worn-out excuses, like the threats of communism or U.S. imperialism, for not modernizing their political and economic systems.”

Many investors are missing this point, thinking these countries are just doing well because they have a lot of commodities to sell. In fact they are doing well because their citizens are getting wealthier each year and have more money to spend. That can only happen with a stable, transparent government in place. With that happening, growth is almost a sure thing. (As opposed to Venezuala and Bolivia, countries that have plenty of commodities but a corrupt and backward-looking government.) Argentina could go either way, but right now it’s not looking promising.

Read the full Time article here.