Congratulations to Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature last week. Here’s the sad part though: “He is the first Latin American writer to win the prize since Octavio Paz in 1990.” (No Spanish readers in Sweden perhaps?)

Big news for real estate investors looking at Ecuador: International Living reports that a new road and bridge has cut the drive time from Quito to the coast in half.

Here’s how I’ve been dealing with the health care crisis in the United States: moving to Mexico. A short jaunt will do it though for everything from root canals to operations. That’s why Mexico is expecting more than 50,000 medical tourists this year.

There’s a new 4th edition out of the indispensable guidebook to Nicaragua for travelers in any budget range: Moon Handbook Nicaragua. Joshua Berman, who has reviewed some of our luxury hotels in Nicaragua and Belize, is the co-author and he knows his stuff.

There’s not a lot of luxury travel in El Salvador, but our own Paige Penland has a new guide out for the country – El Salvador: a Great Destination.

Since I’m on a roll with contributor shout-outs here, check out Nicholas Gill’s rundown of Favorite Food Finds from Lima’s Mistura Food Festival.

The first time I visited Peru, about six years ago, the Sacred Valley was an afterthought for most tourists. It was a place you visited on a day trip from Cusco, but not an area where many people spent the night. There were some decent hotels, but nothing to rival what you found on opposite ends of the valley: at Machu Picchu and in Cusco.

It looks like 2010 is going to be the year when the Sacred Valley gets on the luxury travel destination map. We just posted a review of Aranwa Resort and Spa and it outdoes anything that’s been in the area so far. For one thing it occupies a huge amount of land intersected by a river and flanked by misty mountains.

“The hotel’s one hundred spacious rooms are sprinkled in about the property in either a restored 18th century colonial hacienda, the centerpiece of the resort, or in several more modish modern buildings with minimalist décor. Both styles are equal in amenities—LCD TVS, DVD players, working Wi-Fi, mini-fridge, safe, and hydro-massage tub. Every room has a small balcony and the view is more or less spectacular in whichever part of the property you are.”

Aranwa is going to have company soon though: Tambo del Inka—part of the Starwood Luxury Collection—will be opening up this month. Stay tuned as we’ll be reviewing it as soon as our Peru correspondent is in the region.

If you have a small group or family, also check out our review of Urubamba Villas. With these you get your own lovely house and it comes with a cook!

See other luxury hotels in Peru.

We just posted a review of the Libertador Hotel Paracas, on the Pacific Coast of Peru, about three hours south of Lima. In most countries the opening of a luxury oceanfront resort is pretty routine, but in Peru’s case it’s a big deal. Despite having 1,500 miles of coastland, this country has never had anything close to a 5-star hotel on the water unless you count the two with a view in Lima, perched high above the Pacific.

So now there’s a reason to head south besides getting a peek at the Nazca lines.

“It is one of the most dramatic points of Peru’s coastal desert, in close proximity to coastal cliffs and towering sand dunes. Architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia, whose credits include the Four Seasons Dubai and Canyon Ranch Miami, designed the 121-room property made up of two-level white buildings.”

The major nature reserve containing Islas Ballestas is nearby, reached by boat, and the hotel offers excursions to the Nazca Lines or the Tambo Colorado archeological complex.

See our full review here and keep an eye on the reawakening of the Libertador chain. They are busy opening other new hotels in the future and are revamping their ones in Cusco and Arequipa.

When I was at the Luxury Travel Expo last month I had the pleasure of hearing a short presentation from Kim MacQuarrie, a Peru travel expert and author of the book Last Days of the Incas. A few lucky souls will get to spend far more time with him this year actually traveling through Peru: he is leading a tour with Geographic Expeditions that is centered on this history of the Incas.

We now have a lively and informative interview with Kim MacQuarrie posted in our interviews section. He talks about the research that went into his book, the upcoming tours, Incan architecture, and his favorite hotel in the country. As someone who lived with a recently-contacted tribe of indigenous Amazonians and has since covered many parts of Peru that few people ever visit, he knows this fascinating country inside-out.

“One tends to think of Peru in terms of Cuzco, the Incas, and Machu Picchu. But of course, there is much, much more. Around 60% of Peru is tropical rainforest, and large portions of that are virtually unexplored regions. In fact, there are still a handful of uncontacted tribes that roam there.

The long strip of desert on the coast is as dry as the surface of the Moon, with virtually no rainfall whatsoever. The ruins of thousands of years of ancient civilizations are buried there—pyramids, monuments, fortresses, tombs. Pretty incredible, really. In fact, so many pyramids and tombs have been discovered in Peru in the last 20-30 years that people more and more are referring to Peru as the “Egypt of the Americas.” One ancient city that was discovered as recently as 2001 is nearly five thousand years old—the oldest city in the Americas. As old as the Step Pyramids in Egypt.”

See our full Last Days of the Incas interview here.

Last week we posted reviews of two luxury hotels that opened recently in Peru and Brazil.

The Peru opening’s name makes it sound like it should be in Colombia—Casa Cartegena—but it’s actually in Cusco, just a shuffle away from the reigning Monasterio and the upscale Inkaterra boutique hotel La Casona.

This hotel dispenses with all the Spanish Colonial antiques and religious oil paintings though and presents something Cusco didn’t really have before: a hotel with a sleek contemporary design aesthetic.

Our new Brazil addition is not a new hotel really, but a makeover. Orient-Express took over a hotel near Iguassu/Iguazu Falls a few years ago and then shut the place down to renovate it up to their standards. Hotel das Cataratas is still a work in progress, with the spa, some other public areas, and a third of the rooms left to finish, but it’s open for business and showing off its fresh new face.

Orient-Express operates lots of fine hotels and the Hiram Bingham train in Peru, plus the Copacabana Palace hotel in Rio. We’re sure this new addition to their roster will get plenty of acclaim from guests and the press in the coming year, plus everyone who has been to both sides of the falls says the view is more dramatic on the Brazilian side.