Things to Do in Quimbaya, Quindío — Right Next Door

Most first-time visitors to Quindío beeline for Salento and never look twice at Quimbaya — which is a mistake, because it's the town Casa de los Sueños actually sits closest to, and it has more going on than it gets credit for. If you'd rather not spend an hour in the car every day, here's a full day (or two) without ever leaving the neighborhood.

That's been especially true this past month. On August 10, 2026, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit Quindío hard, and Quimbaya took the worst of it — around a thousand homes affected, hundreds destroyed, hundreds of families displaced from the neighborhoods closest to the center of town. It's been a hard few weeks here, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. It's also been a month of the town showing up for itself: neighbors clearing debris and running shelters, local businesses reopening as soon as it was safe to, and a tourism sector that's already back up and running across most of the region. If you're planning a Quindío trip, spending a day in Quimbaya isn't an afterthought right now — it's one of the more direct ways to put money back into a local economy that needs it. Every meal out, every park ticket, every night booked at a place like ours goes straight to people who are rebuilding.

PANACA

PANACA — the Parque Nacional de la Cultura Agropecuaria — is actually located in Quimbaya, not somewhere you have to drive to. It's one of the largest agricultural theme parks in the country: more than 4,500 animals across eight educational stations, with hands-on activities like animal feeding, horseback riding, and dog-training shows. It closed for about a week after the earthquake for safety inspections and reopened on August 15 — it's back to full hours and its normal full day's worth of programming, and it's an easy win for a group with kids or anyone who's never been up close with farm animals before.

Reserva Natural La Montaña del Ocaso

A 106-hectare forest reserve, also in Quimbaya, managed by Universidad del Quindío and best known for its howler monkeys — more than 200 of them, organized into about 12 troops. Birds, orchids, and some butterflies show up along its trails too, but it's a wildlife reserve first, not a butterfly house. It's open, like most of Quimbaya's attractions — guided walks are worth arranging a call ahead to confirm, since some tour schedules are still settling back into their normal rhythm.

The Botanical Garden — for the actual butterfly exhibit

If butterflies specifically are the point, the real destination is the Quindío Botanical Garden and its mariposario — 1,500 butterflies along a covered garden path, plus over 180 bird species on the grounds. It's in Calarcá, not Quimbaya, so budget about 35 minutes each way rather than treating it as a next-door stop — but it's the one on this list worth the extra drive if that's specifically what a guest is after. It's back open on its normal schedule after the earthquake: daily, 9am–3:30pm; admission runs roughly 37,500–75,000 COP depending on visitor category.

Las Bailarinas Water Park

Technically just over the line in neighboring Montenegro, but close enough to Quimbaya that it's an easy add-on rather than a separate trip. Pools, slides, and bungee jumping — a good pressure-release afternoon after a morning at PANACA, especially for a mixed-age group with kids who need to burn off energy. It reopened along with most of the region's other parks in the weeks after the earthquake.

Four-Wheeling Around Quimbaya

ATV and off-road tours run out of the Quimbaya–Montenegro area and are one of the more overlooked ways to see the countryside — plantation roads and back trails you won't reach on foot or by Jeep. Worth booking directly with a local operator a day or two ahead rather than showing up and hoping, and worth confirming that routes are fully back to normal before you lock in a time — some back roads are still being cleared.

The town itself

Quimbaya's own town center took some of the hardest damage in the earthquake, and you'll see it if you walk through — the Basílica Menor Jesús, María y José is closed while it's assessed, though the statue of the Cristo de la Esperanza on top of it never came down, and it's become something of a symbol for the town. Parque Bolívar, the main square, is still worth a slow half-hour with a coffee, and the Aldea del Artesano is where to go if anyone in the group wants to bring home something made locally — silver, guadua bamboo, ceramics, and tagua work from more than 40 local artisans. Buying something there puts money directly into a local maker's hands, which matters a bit more than usual right now.

Put together, that's a genuinely full day (PANACA and the reserve alone are each worth a half-day) without anyone getting back in the car for a long drive — which makes Quimbaya the easiest, lowest-effort day of a longer coffee-region trip, and a good one to schedule right after arrival.

None of this is about disaster tourism, and we're not asking anyone to come see the damage. It's simpler than that: Quimbaya still has everything that made it worth a day of anyone's trip before August 10th, its economy needs normal life — including visitors — to keep coming back, and every group that books a few nights at Casa de los Sueños and spends a day in town is doing something small but real for the recovery. If you want to see more of what that looks like, our Social Impact page has more on how we support the local community. And when you're ready to plan a trip, we'd love to have you.