If your significant other is a true hopeless romantic, get lucky and score some points this weekend by taking them to see Love in the Time of Cholera. It tells an epic love story that spans a fifty-year period, where one man is obsessed with one woman. Period costumes and the inevitable, "How long will he wait?" question abound.

Benjamin Bratt and John Leguizamo make appearances, and rumor has it the producer had to court the author of the book, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for three years to get him to sell the rights to the story.

This one was shot in an exciting locale, Colombia, so we offer you some great things to check out on your next trip to Bogota:

Where To Stay: Hotel de la Opera Formerly a pair of stately colonial buildings, this pink-hued hotel has been resurrected to all its past glory. It's chic and polished, and the 29 rooms offer high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows - many that open onto private balconies. There's an on-site restaurant that serves delicious Mediterranean food, just as popular with guests as with locals.

Where To Eat: Casa Vieja Head to Casa Vieja for authentic Colombian food, including raved-about ajiaco (a traditional chicken soup made with corn, potatos, avocado, sour cream, capers and the guasca herb.) The spot's a bit of a chain around town, but worth it once, if even to check out the antiques and artwork that laden the walls.

Where To Gawk: Museo del Oro Like shiny, gold things? The Museo del Oro is your spot. It houses one of the world's largest collections of gold items, with 34,000 on display. Yes, it's upsetting that most of these were gathered from natives by force, but they truly showcase the craftsmanship of primitive cultures and are worth over $200 million total. Head to the top-floor gallery where you can stare at the largest uncut emerald in the world.

Related Stories:
· Movie Set Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Colombia Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Colombia Hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: Critico Latino]

Buried at the bottom of US Airways' October traffic report was a fun little tidbit, the likes of which we're beginning to see everywhere:

[Plan] to file for proposed Charlotte, N.C.-Bogotá, Colombia service when the Department of Transportation formally commences the application process. The proposed route will be US Airways' first service to South America.

US Air is already a big player in the Caribbean. But service between the US and Colombia is currently limited to 70 flights a week, and American Airlines, Continental and Delta run all of those flights. US Air is hoping to crack the emerging market when more flights are opened up within the next year.

They won't be the only airline vying for the limited amount of new service. JetBlue has proposed daily round-trips between Fort Lauderdale and Bogotá. Spirit Airlines is also interested in the route, but American has kept them from it by announcing expanded service. Looks like Entourage was right--Colombia is the new hotness.

Related Stories:
· New Routes coverage [Jaunted]
· Colombia coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Naty Rive]

Thanks to reports of dropping crime under President Alvaro Uribe, Colombia just might be the hipster tropical destination du jour. International visits to the country have risen by two-thirds since 2002. But according to an Associated Press report, those flocking to the celebrated colonial port city of Cartagena expecting to find a similarly shrinking crime rate are in for a surprise. 

In this weekend’s travel pages: traveling in Japan, last-chance winter fun, and urban travel in a new crop of destinations.

Japan
– “A Mountain of Tranquility Near Tokyo’s Frenzy” (NYT)
– “Island-hopping mad in Japan” (Times of London)

Enjoying the Last of Winter
– “The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska” (NYT)
– “How to Enjoy a Nordic Ritual at Any Age” (NYT)
– “Learning to snowboard at Mountain High & Bear Mountain” (LA Times)

Urban Travel
– “Bogotá: 100 Percent Colombian” (SF Chronicle)
– “Food? Art? History? It’s all in Lyon” (Chicago Tribune)
– “Instant weekend: Bucharest” (Times of London)

(image via ruudb0y’s photostream)

Colombia ranked No. 2 in the Happy Planet Index last year, which seems an impressive finish given the country’s well-known problems. Drug cartels and years of civil war have colored the world’s impression of Colombia, and though those dangers have begun to recede the U.S. State Department has kept its travel warning in place. So how should we characterize Colombia? Daniel Kurtz-Phelan ventured to Bogotá and Medellín for a piece in the March issue of Travel + Leisure, and he writes of a country in transition. “Throughout my visit,” he writes, “everyone from government officials and security experts to shopkeepers and demobilized rebels told me that Colombia is becoming ‘a normal country’—or, if not quite normal, at least one where violence no longer defines daily life but merely infringes on its margins.”

Coordinates: 7 0 N 73 15 W
Area: 12,382 sq. mi. (32,069 sq. km)
With this year’s Nobel Prizes still in the headlines, the words of the 1937 winner in medicine, Albert von Szent-Györgyi, spring to mind. “Discovery,” he opined, “consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” If he was right, then the two scientists who ventured into deep into the jungle-covered slopes of the Yariguies range in Colombia’s east Andes should be commended for boldly going where no one had thought to before. Their commitment to documenting bird diversity led them to the Santander Department, an administrative region that is at once isolated from the rest of the country and yet roughly 100 miles from Medellín, Colombia’s second most populous city. News that Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas had discovered an unknown species of brush finch in Santander’s shrinking cloud forest was released this month.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.