The Willys Jeep - what it is and how to use it

The Willys jeep is one of the most recognizable images of the Eje Cafetero, and it has a real story. When World War II ended in 1945, hundreds of surplus military Willys jeeps found their way to Colombia, where they became indispensable in the coffee region's mountain terrain - capable of carrying over 600 kilos and navigating roads that nothing else could handle. They're still running today, painted in bright colors, each fitting up to 14 passengers (the Colombians are creative about this). Taking the Willys jeep is a practical and fun way to experience the history and the culture of this region.

What to Eat - Trout (trucha)

Trout is the regional dish of the Eje Cafetero. Order it wherever you see it, but especially look for: trout a la gratin on thin patacones. That specific combination is native to Salento - the patacones there are thinner, crispier, more like a platform than a side dish.

Getting to the Eje Cafetero

Fly into: Pereira (PEI) - Matecana International Airport. Direct flights from Bogota (~45 min) and Medellin (~35 min). From the US, you'll connect through Bogota.

From Bogota: LATAM and Avianca operate frequent daily flights to Pereira. Budget COP $200,000-400,000 (~$50-100 USD) each way if booked in advance.

From Medellin: An alternative entry point if you're combining trips - El Nido del Condor is closer to Medellin than Pereira, roughly 3 hours by road.

Getting around the Eje Cafetero

Rent a car: Can be a good decision for this itinerary, if you don't mind driving. Get a 4x4 or SUV - mandatory for the El Nido leg, highly recommended everywhere else. The roads between hotels are mostly paved and beautiful. Driving yourself gives you autonomy that transfers and taxis can't, but honestly, using drivers has as much flexibility on timing as renting a car.

Uber: Works reliably within Pereira and Salento for shorter hops, and we did use it between certain hotels. Use it for the airport transfer and for getting around town. May not always be available on rural mountain roads.

Private driver/transfer: Worth it if you're not renting a car. You can call our guys Juan David Biohotel Eje Cafetero (+57 300 523-1819) or ask your hotel to arrange - they have trusted local contacts. For El Nido specifically, confirm the driver has a 4x4 before you book.

Willys jeep: For the Salento to Cocora Valley trailhead run only. COP $5,000 (~$1.25 USD) each way, departs the main plaza from 6:30am. It's part of the experience - take it at least once.

Language note: Spanish is essential outside the hotels. If you don't speak it, download Google Translate offline before you go. If you do, use it. Even basic Spanish goes a long way.

Things to do in the Eje Cafetero

Beyond the four hotels, the broader region has more than most itineraries cover. Here's what's worth knowing about:

Coffee. The Eje Cafetero is, obviously, coffee country. If you want a proper farm tour, Hacienda Venecia near Manizales is the most consistently recommended. Several farms in the Salento and Armenia areas also offer tours at varying levels of depth - from a 2-hour overview to a full-day harvest experience. Budget COP $60,000-$100,000 (~$15-$25 USD) per person. We didn't do a coffee tour on this trip (four hotels in eight days leaves less time than you'd think), but it's on the list for next time.

The wax palms. Colombia's national tree, Palma de Cera, grows up to 60 meters tall and is concentrated in the upper reaches of Cocora Valley. The horseback riding loop doesn't always take you deep enough to see the most dramatic ones. If the palms are your primary reason for being here, hike the full loop: 15 km, 5-6 hours, starts at the Willys jeep drop-off point.

Thermal springs. Termales de Santa Rosa de Cabal is the most accessible and most visited. Hot springs built into a mountain forest, about 45 minutes from Bio Habitat or Pereira. Most international guides skip it. Go.

Wildlife. Beyond El Nido's resident condors, the Eje Cafetero has significant biodiversity - it's one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. The Jardin Botanico del Quindio in Armenia includes a butterfly sanctuary with hundreds of native species.

Hacienda culture. The coffee region built its wealth through the hacienda system, and several historic coffee estates are now open for tours, overnight stays, or meals. Look for properties marked Paisaje Cultural Cafetero - Colombia's UNESCO-designated coffee cultural landscape.

Practical tips for the Eje Cafetero

Cards vs. cash: US cards are frequently declined at pharmacies, smaller restaurants, and markets. "BIN not supported" is the usual error. Carry COP cash for anything off the main tourist path. Stock up at the Pereira airport ATM when you land.

Best time to visit: December-February (dry season) and July-August. Green year-round and beautiful in any weather, but the El Nido road is significantly safer when it's not raining.

Altitude: Salento sits at about 1,900 meters (6,200 feet). El Nido is higher.

What to pack: Rain jacket (non-negotiable), layers, broken-in hiking shoes or trail runners, bug spray, sunscreen.

 

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Getting around - Valle del Cocora

• • Uber works well within Pereira and for the airport transfer

• • Willys jeep runs from Salento's main plaza to the Cocora Valley trailhead throughout the day, from the main plaza starting at 6:30 AM and leaves when full: COP $5,000 (~$1.25 USD) each way

• • On-foot for the waterfall trail and property grounds - everything at Sazagua is walkable

• • Rental car or private transfer recommended for moving between hotels. The hotels can just call them for you, but sometimes it's cheaper and faster to just call an Uber - check both.

Where to stay

You arrive from your pilgrimage to Sazagua Cocora, greeted by a hot cup of coffee and possibly a glass of wine. Check in, exhale, and stop trying to plan things.

The Sazagua property is 80 hectares of cloud forest with a waterfall, a working restaurant, a fireplace, and your room has a Japanese soaking tub overlooking a private garden.

Give yourself permission to do nothing for the entire first day.

The Waterfall Walk

Do it the afternoon you arrive. It sets the tone for the kind of property this is – unstructured, green, and genuinely in the middle of something wild.

The trail is easy enough in sneakers.

Where to Eat — Restaurante Cocora

Don't leave the property for dinner on night 1. Restaurante Cocora is right there, the menu changes with the local agricultural cycle, and the setting — open-air, looking out over the valley — is exactly what you came for. What we spent: COP $178,090 (~$45 USD) for 2, plus tip COP $16,490. Dinner for 2 at a boutique eco-lodge restaurant in the Colombian cloud forest for $45. The Eje Cafetero is still wildly underpriced for what it delivers.

Cocora Valley is the iconic image of the Eje Cafetero – the super tall-and-skinny wax palms rising out of the fog, Colombia's national tree, growing up to 60 meters high in a valley that looks like it was set-designed. Book the horseback riding. But read this first.

Horseback Riding in Cocora Valley

Book through Sazagua directly – they arrange everything, horses depart from the property, and the guides know the trails. Price: COP $220,000 per person (~$54 USD). Worth it.

The wax palms are concentrated in the upper part of the valley. Depending on the route your guide takes, you may see a few palms from the lower trails – gorgeous, but not the full spectacle.

If seeing the towering palms up close is your main goal, confirm with the guide before you set off that you're heading up. The full loop takes several hours.

After the Ride — Restaurante Cocora

Come back to the property, shower, and eat. The lunch menu at Restaurante Cocora is lighter than dinner — regional dishes, whatever's fresh.

If the jugo de guanábana (soursop juice) is on the menu, order it – it's 1 of the signature drinks of the coffee region and you won't find it like this anywhere else. Same goes for the grilled arepas: thicker and more charred than what you'd get in Bogotá or Medellín, served with everything. Order them whenever you see them on a menu throughout the trip.

 

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Getting around — Armenia / Quindío

• • Uber works well in Armenia and for hops between nearby properties

• • Rental car recommended for exploring the region – lets you do Termales and Armenia on your own schedule

• • Taxis are available, but Uber is more reliable for non-Spanish speakers

Things to do — Armenia / Quindío

• • Bio Habitat spa – proper wellness treatments and food in a setting that matches the property's aesthetic

• • Armenia city – capital of Quindío, ~20 minutes away; great local markets, food, and a real Colombian city energy

• • Termales de Santa Rosa – natural thermal springs, ~45 minutes; hot springs built into mountain forest

• • Jardín Botánico del Quindío – botanical garden and butterfly sanctuary in Armenia; one of the best in the country

• • Coffee farm tours – Recorrido por la Cultura Cafetera in Montenegro (about 15–20 min from Armenia) is thorough and well-run, though busy on weekends. Finca La Victoria near Clarcía is more low-key and historical – better if you want something smaller and less produced.

Where to stay

After the dramatic vertical landscape of Cocora Valley, Bio Habitat feels like stepping into a greenhouse – lush, horizontal, dense with plants and intentional design.

Spend your entire day here. Give yourself the gift of the afternoon of wellness rituals, followed by sunset drinks and dinner at Basto Resto Bar.

The spa – BIO spa & wellness

Bio Habitat is pretty serious about wellness, and you should definitely get 1 ritual – minimum – so that you can at least check out the wellness center.

It's this huge open-faced wing of the property, with a glass-bottom infinity plunge pool that expands out about 60 feet into the jungle canopy.

It also has another long plunge pool perpendicular (in case you're afraid of heights) and a jacuzzi.

The bar upstairs has healthy drinks, teas, and food – and some wine – and they do meditation and yoga workshops.

They kind of have everything you would want at a wellness center, like the sauna, lounging area, etc.

And it's all set in a beautiful, green, lush jungle.

Book the full spa treatment for the day you get in.

What we ordered – Basto Resto Bar

Dish	Notes
Tataki de Atún	Tuna tataki – shredded coconut, sesame, soy + orange zest dressing, avocado, Colombian potato
Pescado Blanco	White fish, seasonal preparation
Ensalada Basto	House salad
Pan	Bread
Torta Tres Leches	Dessert
Sticky Toffee Postre	Dessert
Negroni Copa	Cocktail
Vino Blanco Copa	White wine by the glass
TOTAL	COP $334,333 (~$86 USD) for 2 – Feb 18, table Tucaín

Morning – Bio Trail

Start on-property before you do anything else. Bio Habitat's Bio Trail is a 45-minute guided walk through 1.4 km of the hotel's grounds, where you actually see how the place runs: solar energy production, wetland water treatment, permaculture plots, and native tree planting. It's the kind of tour that makes the hotel's sustainability positioning feel like a fact instead of a marketing claim. If you want to go bigger in the morning, book Forest above Forest instead: a 4x4 excursion up into the Colombian Andes to 3,500 meters above sea level to reach the wax palm forests and spot the yellow-eared parrot in its actual habitat. Do this or the Bio Trail – not both, or you'll run out of day.

Midday – Lunch in Armenia

Drive the 20 minutes into Armenia and go to DarPapaya for lunch. Chef Carolina runs a kitchen that mixes Colombian seasoning with Latin-Asian and Indian influences – the latter picked up from her Indian husband, which is exactly the kind of culinary backstory that makes a restaurant worth seeking out. Order the ceviche and whatever the fish special is. COP $43,700–$109,300 (~$11–$27 USD) per person.

Night – Night Trail

This is the one. Bio Habitat runs a guided Night Trail through the property after dark – amphibians, night monkeys, insects, the full nocturnal ecosystem up close.

Salento | KAWA Mountain Retreat · Days 5–6

The town that ties it all together

Quick Facts

• 📍 Location: Salento, Quindío – KAWA is a 5-minute walk from the main plaza
• 🏨 Where to stay: KAWA Mountain Retreat
• 🛏️ Room: Eco lodge
• 💰 Rate: from COP $368,368 (~$94 USD)/night
• 📅 Best time: December–February (dry) or July–August – avoid holiday weekends when Salento gets crowded
• ⌛ Minimum stay: 2 nights – 1 for Salento town, 1 for the property itself

Getting there

From Bio Habitat, drive toward Salento – about 45 minutes. COP $60,000–80,000 (~$15–20 USD).

Getting around – Salento

• On foot – Salento's entire main street is walkable in 10 minutes, but you'll need to take a taxi to KAWA
• Willys jeep – for getting to Cocora Valley; departs from the main plaza from 6:30am, COP $5,000 (~$1.25) each way
• Uber – available for longer hops out of town

Things to do – Salento

• Walk the main street (Calle Real) – saturated colors, artisan shops, family-run businesses; viewpoint at the top
• The mirador staircase – 253 colorful steps up through the hillside to a viewpoint looking out over the whole valley. Every photo you've ever seen of Salento is taken from here or on the way up. It's free, it's 15 minutes, and you should do it as soon as you get into town.
• Willys jeep to Cocora Valley – if you didn't hike it on Day 2, now's your chance; the jeep ride itself is part of the experience
• Shop for local crafts – a block or 2 of the main street for the family-run shops vs. tourist operations; check labels before buying
• Trucha al gratine on patacones – the regional dish of Salento; order it wherever you see it
• Coffee farm tour – Finca El Ocaso (~$6/person, ~COP $25,000): plant your own seeds, walk the full process, end with making your own cup. On-site coffee shop with 1 of the best cappuccinos in the region. Finca Don Elías: small family-run farm, 1-hour tour, often partially with the owner himself.

Where to stay

Salento is small – you can walk the main street in ten minutes – but it's 1 of the most photographed places in Colombia for good reason. The buildings are painted in saturated colors that don't look real in photos and look even less real in person. The main street slopes up toward a viewpoint overlooking the valley. The plaza has the kind of afternoon energy that makes you order 1 more coffee. After you drop your bags at KAWA, spend your first afternoon just walking, shopping, eating, and drinking. You don't need a plan.

Shopping in Salento

There are shops along the main drag selling leather goods, jewelry, bags, and craft items – and some of them are genuinely beautiful. Some of them are also made in China. My husband clocked it immediately on a necklace I was about to buy for $60. The good stuff is there too, but it's worth being cynical.

What we ordered – Maji by Cerán

Dish	COP	USD
Margarita de Tamarán (cocktail)	$40,000	$10
Trapiche Colado (cocktail)	$40,000	$10
Ceviche de Atún	$63,000	$16
Tuna Araza	$50,000	$12.50
Udón de Setas (mushroom udon)	$65,000	$16
Club Colombia beer x2	$10,000	$2.50
Fermentos x2	$14,000	$3.50
Adicional de arroz	$6,000	$1.50
Otros – Fermento	$5,000	$1.25
TOTAL	$320,100	$82

KAWA Mountain Retreat

After dinner, make your way back to KAWA.

KAWA is the boutique hotel Salento deserves.

Before you check in, understand what you're standing in: the main building is constructed entirely in tapia – a traditional Colombian building method using only clay and earth, no concrete, no cement. It's 1 of the oldest construction techniques in the region, and KAWA uses it deliberately.

The restaurant, Orocue, leans towards thoughtful vegetarian and very good – they work with lacto-fermented ingredients, house-made sauces, and locally sourced produce.

Breakfast is included and will keep you longer than you planned.

The accommodations are treehouse-style cabins and colorful Colonial House rooms, some with outdoor soaking tubs.

If you did it right, your very cute boutique room has either 1 of these or a free-standing bathtub jacuzzi, a sauna, and a hammock.

This is your time to decompress.

Breakfast is included and will keep you longer than you planned. Sit down and actually taste it.

Choose your adventure

KAWA organizes excursions – book one through the hotel when you arrive. Here's how to choose:

• If you want coffee: Immersion in coffee culture and visit to Salento – 6 hours, COP $640,000 (~$160 USD). A working coffee farm, full bean cycle from planting to cup, guided.
• If you want to ride: Horseback riding on a coffee farm, river, and visit to Salento – 6 hours, COP $580,000 (~$145 USD). Through a working farm and along a river.
• If you want the wax palms done properly: Hiking in the Cocora Valley and visit to Salento – 8 hours, COP $690,000 (~$172 USD). KAWA handles all the logistics; you just show up and walk.
• If you want something completely different: Five senses around chocolate and a visit to Filandia – 4 hours, COP $590,000 (~$147 USD). Colombia produces some of the rarest fine aroma cocoa in the world – less than 10% of global production. This tour puts you inside that process, plus Filandia, a colonial town with colorful balconies that most people skip entirely and shouldn't.

Dinner at Orocue

Dinner is at Orocue.

The menu was built by head chef Carla, and it reads like a map of Colombia – every single ingredient on every plate traced back to a specific region she traveled to and cooked in.

Executive chef Lady Urbana described it simply: "Estamos comiendo de todo de las partes de Colombia."

We're eating from all parts of Colombia. In one meal.

What that looks like in practice:

Pacific shrimp in a yuca brava sauce from the Amazon – yuca brava is a naturally poisonous root that's processed until it's not, then turned into something sweet, strong, and faintly bitter.

Ceviche Pasián with cidra (a local fruit most people walk past at the market, very good for digestion and hydration) and a tiger's milk made from maracuyá.

Corn tortillas with avocado emulsion, cilantro sprouts, and acedera leaves that taste like lemon.

The philosophy, as Lady Urbana put it: preserve the ancestral, evolve the technique.

The same Colombian flavors you'd recognize from your grandmother's kitchen, plated in a way that makes you forget your phone exists.

Which, at KAWA, is kind of the whole point.

Villamaría | El Nido del Cóndor · Days 7–8

The most extraordinary hotel you've never heard of

 

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Getting there

This is the big drive: from Salento, head north through Pereira (about 1 hour), then continue north toward Manizales and take the road toward Villamaría. From Villamaría, follow mountain roads for 17 kilometers – the last stretch is unpaved, steep, and spectacular.

From there: gondola.

The gondola is a small cable car that crosses a valley at roughly 2,000 meters elevation. The crossing takes about 8 minutes.

It is 1 of the more quietly stunning things I've experienced in years of travel – you're suspended over nothing, looking into a valley that seems to go on forever, and it's completely silent except for the wind. Then you arrive.

Allow 2.5–3 hours total. Rent a 4x4 or confirm your transfer vehicle has clearance. After rain, this road is not optional – it is mandatory.

Getting around – Villamaría / El Nido

• • Gondola – the only way in and out of the property; plan your arrivals/departures accordingly

• • 4x4 mandatory for the mountain road; do not attempt in a standard vehicle after rain

• • On-foot for everything once you're on the property – trails, gardens, the breakfast lookout

Things to do – El Nido del Cóndor

• • The property has 8 hiking trails ranging from easy walks to genuinely challenging routes – go with a bilingual guide the first time.

• • Horseback riding runs through the surrounding landscape and is good for total beginners.

• • Mountain biking is available on 2 full-suspension e-bikes if you want to cover more ground faster.

• • El Nido's Wellness Center is well-stocked and has hydrothermal programs, Finnish ofuros, and individual massage sessions using Eastern and Western techniques.

• • Night Tour – guides take you into the forest after dark.

• • Country House Visit – where condors actually nest and perch.

• • Group tent with private platform – if you're traveling with a group, ask about renting the group tent with the private platform in the back. Best way to experience El Nido collectively.

Where to stay

There's a moment after you cross the gondola, walk to your lodge, open the door, and look at the bathroom – and you think: someone designed this with genuine intention.

The owner of El Nido del Cóndor is an architect, and you feel it everywhere.

The structures are organic, the materials are drawn from the landscape, and the whole property has a kind of Indiana Jones meets high-design wilderness camp energy that you can't manufacture.

It's just what happens when someone builds something they actually love.

Meet Chef Judy Martínez

El Nido's kitchen is run by a team that includes Chef Judy Martínez, who grew up watching her father cook – he was a chef too, now passed, and you can tell this is the part of the story that matters most to her.

"My inspiration was my father," she told me. "Since I was very small, I saw him cook, and gastronomy just called to me."

She runs a kitchen built almost entirely around what the property produces (you literally see them picking the produce), and what she can source from the neighbors she actually knows by name.

The Ceviche de Chicharrón

Order it.

It's different from the chicharrón that you've had because at El Nido we do ceviche de chicharrón that Judy says she developed partly from watching food videos online – "por las redes sociales," she grinned.

Corn, onion, cilantro, and lime with chicharrón (fried pork skin).

It was actually too exotic for me, but I'm not a meat guy so you should give it a try.

Dinner – Restaurante El Nido

The restaurant is the communal heart of the property. The tables are named after local wildlife.

Set your alarm. Be at the breakfast lookout by 8:45am.

Exploring the property

The gardens are worth walking before you leave.

The fruit and flowers used to make your food, soaps and shampoos grow in organized rows that look more like art installations than agriculture.

Getting to Pereira airport

Drive back down the mountain (same 4x4 logic on the way out), back through Villamaría and Manizales, then south to Pereira airport.

Allow about 3 hours total, with the mountain road.

Pereira airport (PEI) has direct flights to Bogotá and Medellín.

When we drove to El Nido, we had a beer in the car.

When the driver picked us up the next day, he had a cooler full of beers in the back. Not a word was said. We simply got in the car and opened one.

This is Colombia, this is why you hire a local driver, and this is the kind of thing that doesn't happen when you rent your own car.

Before you leave the region: stock up at the Almacenes Amoxito in Pereira Cerritos.

They carry Aguardiente Manzana – COP $53,400 (~$13.50 USD) per bottle. Buy 2.

Once people at home taste it, it disappears.

Eight days, four hotels, and not one we wouldn't go back to tomorrow.

What makes the Eje Cafetero special isn't just the coffee or the wax palms – it's that you can string together four genuinely one-of-a-kind hotels in a single week.

A cloud-forest retreat with a Japanese soaking tub, a sustainability-driven design hotel, a tapia-walled mountain lodge in Salento built without a drop of concrete, and a gondola-access ecolodge where wild condors ride the thermals over your breakfast.

You will not find that combination anywhere else.

It was, start to finish, a seriously luxurious trip – the kind where every property felt designed, not just booked.

Here's exactly what we spent for two people – hotels, food, and every excursion, below. It doesn't include flights; we booked those on points.

And honestly? Worth every peso.

Total spend

What 2 people spent across 8 days in the Eje Cafetero

Item	COP	USD
🏨 Hotels
Sazagua Cocora — 1 night (Premium Suite)	COP 1,048,500	$262
Bio Habitat — night 1 (Aviaries Master)	COP 1,166,100	$299
Bio Habitat — night 2 (Grand Master Suite)	COP 1,673,100	$429
KAWA Mountain Retreat — 1 night	COP 544,456	$136
El Nido del Cóndor — 1 night (Nido, food included)	COP 1,750,000	$449
Subtotal	COP 6,182,156	$1,575
🍴 Food & drink
Restaurante Cocora — dinner	COP 178,090	$45
Restaurante Cocora — lunch	COP 131,561	$33
Sazagua — bar (cocktails & wine)	COP 334,333	$86
Bio Habitat — minibar	COP 288,000	$74
Maji by Cerán — lunch	COP 320,100	$82
Orocue (KAWA) — dinner	COP 475,278	$122
El Nido — drinks	COP 139,852	$36
Other food	~COP 1,170,000	~$300
Subtotal	COP 3,037,214	$778
🐎 Activities
Cocora horseback riding (2 people)	COP 440,000	$113
Spa & wellness — Bio Habitat	COP 639,600	$164
Subtotal	COP 1,079,600	$277
🚙 Transport
Pereira airport → Sazagua (Uber)	COP 31,000	$8
Sazagua → Bio Habitat	COP 62,000	$16
Bio Habitat → KAWA	COP 70,000	$18
KAWA → El Nido (private transfer)	COP 300,000	$77
El Nido → Pereira airport (private transfer)	COP 276,900	$71
Willys jeep — Cocora (round trip)	COP 10,000	$3
Subtotal	COP 749,900	$193
🛍️ Shopping
Éxito supermarket — supplies & spirits	COP 484,590	$124
Handmade purse (mirador)	COP 78,000	$20
Subtotal	COP 562,590	$144
TOTAL (excludes international flights)	COP 11,611,460	$2,967