A Comprehensive Guide to the Coffee Region of Colombia

The Eje Cafeteria is the coffee region of Colombia lying to the south of Medellin and to the west of Bogota. It can be accessible from either city as a starting point, although Medellin is more common. I liked this area so much that I actually came back after my mom left and spent my final week here solo.

First, together we went to Santa Rosa de Cabal and Salento. Then I came back and visited Jardin and Manizales. All of these are great birding destinations and there’s plenty of other activities to do too.

I’ll get into more details below, including what to do in each town, where to stay, and how to get there.

Santa Rosa de Cabal

This town is known for its amazing natural hot springs (termales). We stayed at the hotel Termales Santa Rosa de Cabal. The hotel and the hot springs have the same name but are not affiliated so it’s a bit confusing. I’ll refer to the hot springs site (the one with the big waterfall you see when googling the town) as the main hot springs and the hotel as the hotel hot springs.

The hotel has very mixed reviews so I was a bit nervous about booking it. It ended up being perfectly fine and it has its own hot spring pools right onsite. They also offer massage services.

A lot of the negative reviews are about the food, and yeah. It wasn’t great. We were only there one night and I was still kind of sick and not eating much so wasn’t a huge deal. If you like sausage, that’s what the town is known for so maybe you’ll have better luck ordering that.

The main hot springs have become well-known and you must reserve a time slot. If you can, you should avoid weekends and holidays as a lot of people will make it a weekend trip from Medellin.

We were only staying for an afternoon and the next morning, so we opted to stay at the hotel’s hot springs, which were very nice and probably less crowded.

We flew from Medellin to Pereira and then took a taxi to Santa Rosa (~$15). It’s also possible to get there by public transportation, but it is a bit complicated and would take quite awhile.

Salento

Salento is one of several towns in the Coffee Region that is visited for its charm and colorful buildings. The town is small, but full of restaurants and hotels. There’s also several well-known destinations nearby, including the renowned Cocora Valley (but I’ll tell you about a better place!).

Getting there

I had planned to take a taxi back to Pereira and then a bus to Salento, but again, I got spoiled traveling with my mom. The driver offered to take us to Salento for not much more than what we were going to pay him anyways. It was $20 for him to bring us from Santa Rosa de Cabal Hotel to our hotel in Salento.

Salento is also accessible from the town/airport of Armenia, which is to the south. We took a taxi to Armenia and flew out of its airport to Bogota. I don’t think there’s public transportation between Armenia and Salento, but there is to Pereira.

Where to Stay

We stayed at Hotel Kawa Mountain Retreat in the Deluxe Double Room with Balcony (king size bed). This was not really a budget stay at $88/night, but it was very luxurious for the price. All of the staff were very courteous and helpful. It was at the same service-level of something you’d pay several hundred dollars a night for in the US.

It is on the edge of town but is accessible to the city center by about a 15-minute walk, thanks to an internal trail connecting the hotel to the city’s mirador. There are stairs and some steep inclines to get to and from town.

Breakfast is included and all the food was absolutely wonderful. We stayed here 3 nights and I highly recommend it. My mom still dreams of it and is trying to convince my dad that the stairs aren’t so bad.

What to do

See the Wax Palms

One of the most popular things to do in Salento is to hike through the wax palm forest in Cocora Valley. I had been planning to do this, but other travelers we met recommended that we visit the Carbonera Valley instead. There are about 2000 Quindio palms in Cocora and over two million in Carbonera!

Coincidentally, our hotel advertised a full day tour in Carbonera which was a walking and vehicle tour. They picked us up in the morning and drove us through the valley. We had lunch at a community member’s house at the bottom of the valley, had some time to walk around ourselves, and then headed back. The only negative is that it was a lot of time in the car (2 hours each way), but I think the views make up for it.

I got to see several exciting bird species here, including the yellow-eared parrot! This endangered bird only exists in wax palm forests and is therefore extremely restricted in range.

If vehicle tours aren’t your thing (I get it), it’s also possible to visit the Carbonera Valley on a mountain bike! They drive you to the top and you get to ride down. It sounded really fun, but be prepared to get muddy!

Visit a Coffee Farm

The other activity we did in Salento was a horseback ride to a coffee farm. There had been so much rain that the river wasn’t crossable on horseback, so our tour was longer than usual. We both decided horseback riding wasn’t for us.

The coffee farm was interesting to learn about and they had bird feeders up! We also scheduled this tour through our hotel. There are several coffee farms around, so plenty to choose from!

Birds

I was starting to see a lot of the same birds, but the most exciting ones were the Yellow-eared Parrot and Beryl-spangled Tanager. Both of which I saw in the Carbonera Valley. The birding at Kawa Mountain was also very good.

Full list:

Bay-headed Tanager
Beryl-spangled Tanager
Black Vulture
Blackburnian Warbler
Collared Inca
Glossy-black Thrush
Green Honeycreeper
Green Jay
Palm Tanager
Torrent Duck
Yellow-eared Parrot

Jardin

Jardin is a small, colorful town a few hours south of Medellin. It is a popular town to visit to see the coveted Andean Cock-of-the-rock. This bird is usually hard to find, but in Jardin it is oddly plentiful and you’re nearly guaranteed to see it.

There are buses from the South Terminal of Medellin to Jardin several times a day. It takes about 3 hours.

I stayed in two hostel dorms here. The first was La Tángara Hostal Rural. I chose it because it was a bit further from town and looked like it had beautiful outdoor areas to bird. While the scenery and host were nice, it was a long 30-minute walk from town with some steep inclines.

I was thoroughly enjoying not having to cook for myself, so it was a long way to go for a couple meals a day. I also felt the bathroom was a bit dirty (but I had gotten spoiled staying in those beautiful places with my mom).

The second place was El Charco Corazon, which had a beautiful pond and onsite restaurant. The people in my dorm were smelly, but the place was clean. It was a shorter, flatter walk into town from here. I liked this place a lot and the birding was excellent! I saw motmots, a pair of Red-headed barbets, and the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, all from the hostel grounds! I would definitely stay here again.

What to do

Explore Jardin! It’s a cute little town and is fun to poke around. 

There are several waterfall treks nearby, but I didn’t do any of them. I was content with having some relaxing time, birding around the hostels. Speaking of birds, the best place to find the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock is at Jardín de Rocas on the south side of the town. I didn’t end up going here because I saw one at Charco Corazon hostel, but looks like a great place to spend a few hours. There’s a small entrance fee of a couple dollars.

I highly recommend eating at El Jardin de Jardin. This cafe/restaurant was so good and so cute inside! I ate here twice during my 3 days in Jardin.

Birds

Most Frequent:

Blue-gray Tanager
Golden-olive Woodpecker
Palm Tanager
Andean Motmot
Crimson-backed Tanager
Flame-backed Tanager

Full list (48):

Manizales is one of the larger towns of the Coffee Triangle, along with Pereira and Armenia (each have an airport). I hadn’t researched this town at all before arriving and it ended up being a really good destination. I spent 3 days here, but you could easily spend a week.

You can get to Manizales a lot of ways. There are buses to/from both Medellin and Bogota, plus it has its own airport.

Again, I stayed at the edge of town at a hotel called Mirador Finca Morragacho that I booked on Hostelworld. It was not walking distance to anything, but included breakfast and offered onsite dinner. The grounds were nice for birdwatching. The host had a lot of tourism pamphlets and since I had been taking it easy in Jardin, I was ready to go out an explore.

There are lots of coffee farms around. I went to Hacienda Venecia, which offers coffee and chocolate tours. It also has its own hostel which looks really nice, but a bit far from town.

Unfortunately, I didn’t contact them in time to be able to arrange transportation. But, somebody staying at my hotel was headed in that direction and offered to drop me off! I love it when things like that work out when traveling. I learned a lot about coffee and wanted to do the chocolate tour too, but there wasn’t one available due to a private event. 

Nevado del Ruiz is a volcano in Los Nevados National Park in the mountains to the southeast of the city. Its upper elevations are part of the paramó ecosystem, which I didn’t get a chance to visit when I was near Bogota.

I joined a full day tour, which was mostly a scenic drive. Generally, I prefer to hike and not be in a car, but this was very high elevation (4000m/12,000ft) so I was thankful to not have to hoof it. There are longer, multi-day hiking trips if that’s something you’re up for!

I went with the tour company Ecosistemas. They don’t have a very comprehensive website, but you can contact them on WhatsApp at +57 315 4929938. The tour cost $250,000 COP ($55 USD at the time) and they arranged for a taxi to pick me up in the morning to bring me to the meeting point.

We drove up to the mountains and stopped for breakfast. We got quite a view! Happened to be there during a rare volcanic plume.

Then we went to the park, where we had a safety debrief. One woman started to feel the effects of altitude sickness, so something to keep in mind if you’re prone to this. We got out several times to learn about different features of the paramó ecosystem. The guide was very knowledgeable and I learned a lot, but this is not a birding tour. I did of course have my binoculars, though, and got in a few more species: Andean Condor, Chestnut-winged Cinclodes, Andean Tit-Spinetail, Plain-colored Seedeater.

We had lunch the same place we ate breakfast (they can accommodate vegetarians), and then we ended the afternoon at some hot springs!

Ecotermales el Otoño is open to the public and you could come here on your own. In fact, I ran into the guy staying in my dorm at the hotel! He took a combination of public transportation and a taxi to get there. There were a lot of Bare-faced Ibis around.

At the end of the day, they dropped most people off at their hotels, but since I was a bit outside the city, I was on my own. I took the cable car (fun!) to get to the bus station to buy my ticket to head back to Bogota.

Tinamu Birding

If I had more time here, there were several birding options around. One of them being this birding company, Tinamu. Again, since I didn’t know about it ahead of time, it was too late to plan anything.

They offer a full-day bird tour for $145,000 COP which includes a Spanish-speaking guide, breakfast, lunch, coffee and tea, wifi, a locker, and parking. The tour runs from 6:30-4:00. If you want an English-speaking guide, it is an additional $130,000 COP. They also have their own hotel.

Again, I didn’t go here so can’t say first hand, but it looks like a really cool place and I’d definitely check it out if I go back.

Birds

Full list (23):

I loved my time in the Coffee Region! The weather can be rainy and a bit cold, so keep that in mind especially if you’re coming from the coast. The cooler and sometimes rainy weather does result in less bugs (but not none) so that’s a plus in my book too.

I hope you check it out and let me know if you have any questions!