Jeep Willys in Quimbaya
For PANACA, for the coffee farms, and for the tracks no ordinary car will climb.
A Willys is a 1950s Jeep, and around here it is not a curiosity: it is the bus, the removal van and the family car all at once. The tracks leaving the main square of Quimbaya towards La Julia, El Laurel and Naranjal turn heavy after rain, and getting up them takes ground clearance and a driver who does it every week. Most rides booked from here are exactly that — up to a farm, early in the morning, with the week's shopping in the back.
The other big draw is PANACA, the working farm park about twenty minutes away on the Montenegro road. Those bookings are almost always groups, families of six or eight or ten, and almost always return trips, because the park closes mid-afternoon and getting back by public transport with tired children is nobody's idea of a holiday. If there are more than six of you, say so when you post the ride: it then only reaches drivers with enough seats, so you never waste time on an offer that cannot work.
December is a different town altogether. On the 7th and the 8th the Fiestas de las Velas y Faroles fill the streets with candles and paper lanterns, and the drivers split between visitors and their regular runs up the hill. If you are coming for that, post your ride a day ahead — not because there are no jeeps, but because the ones who know a particular track are already booked.