My husband and I (both 26) are spending just over a week in Peru in March 2009 where we plan to hike the Inca trail and explore the Sacred Valley. Following that we'd like to spend our second week at a quiet beach location to relax and reflect.

Ideally, we'd like a destination in the Caribbean that we can fly to directly from Lima. Some ideas that we are considering right now are Panama (Bocas del Toro), Aruba and Belize. Any other ideas? Many, many thanks.

The clincher might be finding a flight from Lima to the Caribbean. Most hubs go through Miami or Puerto Rico, so you may want to consider your choices in Central America if that's your consideration. So with your criteria, you may want to stick to Panama, Belize, or Mexico.

Having said that, Caribbean and Central America are hugely different, in my opinion, as destinations.

You can fly direclty from Lima to Panama City on Copa. From there you would probably have to change airports and fly onto to Bocas del Toro. Or, you could fly to San Andres, Colombia. Not far from Panama. Perhaps more developed than you're looking for, but white sand, blue water, nice restaurants, decent hotels.

Or, to really get away, fly to San Andres, then onto Providencia. Undeveloped, only a few small hotels, restaurants and beach bars. One of my favorite places, but tough to get to.

Belize is great for snorkeling and diving but if you are looking for lovely beaches to relax on you have a limited selection. On the other hand there are some lovely small resort in Hokins, a 15 minute flight from Belize City. You fky Miami to Belize City in 90 minutes and the resorts arrange the "puddle jumper" to the places 50-75 miles outside Belize City. A week at the nicer places with 3 meals run in a range $1300-$1900/person for 7 nights.
You might be able to fly non-stop lima to Houston and Houston to Belize City in about the same flight time as from Miami but the schedule might fit your desires more.

I'd be very surprised if you couldn't fly from Lima to Aruba or Curacao or Isla Margarita. All three places get tons of South American tourists. I don't have specific places to recommend, as I've never been to any of the three, but if you definitely want Caribbean island, not central American, I should think it would be easy enough to get to one of them.