KAWA Mountain Retreat Hotel en Salento — Hotel in Quindío

As someone who's extensively traveled Colombia and the coffee region, I'd highly, highly recommend that foreigners avoid this hotel. My reasons and experience are as follows:

Poor Room Design + Insects in Bed & Room- the place is cold (I say that as a Canadian). Despite this, the room is designed with all sorts of cracks and openings. This results in the place being cold, but also all sorts of insects getting in. For example, the first night we found a bunch of fire ants under the bed covers

Entrance + Unhelpful Staff - the entrance to the hotel is up a dirt road in very poor condition, followed by the hotel's ramp which is also in very poor condition. Prior to coming, we asked the hotel multiple times if the road was good enough for our small car to enter. They said yes. This resulted in us being stuck in a hole in the road, surrounded by horses. Thankfully we got out and asked for them to send a jeep to get us, but when we arrived, the staff shirked responsibility by saying all types of cars had arrived. This was clearly a lie, as the next morning, I watched them bring in a guest's car with the tire exploding right as it came in (from damage on the road). Side note - don't let them take your keys and bring your car up, which they will offer to do. Taxi drivers told us many cars have gotten stuck in the road on the way up, or have been damaged

Thinly Staffed with No Oversight - the hotel is staffed by a few folks, which don't have the training or ability to fix anything that goes wrong. For example, following the entrance issue I asked to speak to the manager, and despite the staff member noting he'd call, he never did. I followed up multiple times, and every time I was told he'd call in a few hours (never happened). In addition, we found out through conversations with people in the town that many of the explanations we were given for issues that arose but weren't fixed were lies, and that this is common with the hotel

Poor COVID Protocols - compared to every other hotel I've stayed at during COVID, this hotel barely manages biosecurity. They did not take temperatures coming in, don't space the tables, don't clean common areas, etc.

There's more issues to name, but I'll leave it at this. Thankfully I was with Colombians and can speak Spanish, which helped navigate the issues. If you're a foreigner however, some of these problems can leave you in real trouble.

The views are nice, and there's some really great staff (John was awesome and works really hard, the cleaning lady is very nice). But overall, I'd seriously avoid this as a foreigner given the issues, and the setup where you'll have zero help if...

Incredible stay at this retreat! I loved every moment of the service - from the thoughtful touches of a (delicious) check-in passionfruit tea to helping us book our shuttles to and from the resort to the wonderful dogs.

We stayed in the eco-lodge and it was honestly such a retreat. The landscape is beautiful and it was so nice to wake up to that view every day. The included breakfast was also delicious! They grab your WhatsApp number and communicate with you through that. They were great with communication and texted us when our shuttle arrived.

Huge, huge, huge thanks to the team. Special shout out to Carlos for a wonderful moment - he helped us order pizza from a local Italian restaurant and shared it with us over a nice conversation over one of my passions. He paid for the pizza upfront since he approached the driver first and then allowed us to pay him back tomorrow. I will always remember that conversation! (Weebdom is universal...) It felt like they all welcomed us into their family, rather than at a hotel. The entire service team was incredible and everyone tried their best to make our experience as thoughtful as it could be.

The lodge itself was really nice, from the hammock outside in the patio to the filtered water to the nice, warm, beautifully tiled shower. The only thing was that I laughed at the mirror placement - being 5’2”, I had to tiptoe to see the top of my head. Are Colombians that tall?!

It was affordable and one of my favorite stays ever. I’m a bit inclined to not share this, as I want to keep this secret to myself. To be real, it opened last year right before the pandemic and has really suffered, so I really would like to invite more people to come! Have nothing but the highest praises...

Kawa! the picture of it alone gives me what we Dutch (actually Curacaolenos) call "heimwee" To get up in the morning and being presented with the view of those mountains with the upcoming sun on your skin to wake you up slowly and content with coffee at hand,.....Can't get enough of it. And the people are so sweet that you would think it's fake,...but its not. They work hard and effortless to "make it happen"... Mr.Oxford gives a surprisingly familiar touch to it all. The forever smiling Ladies are too good to be true, the breakfast is amazing as is diner with the tastiest beef you'll ever eat. Gourmet at its best! So what's not so good? Mhhhhh,..... I would like one big and one small pillow instead of 2 big ones.... As it is a "retreat" I would suggest to mention it can be noisy around the main building because of people arriving or leaving and personnel communicating right next, under and sometimes even above you,....although, you get used to it if you stay somewhat longer, say 3 to 7 days. Choose your cabin or lodge wisely. Ours was "two under one roof" the cheapest, which forced me to tell the neighbours to keep it down a little after 10 pm. On the other hand if you're close to the main building you are also close to everything: friendly personnel, food, massage, jacuzzi, , a beautiful garden with two general porches and still an excellent view of the mountains, and very important: the short cut to Salento through the bush instead of the mainroad. People come and go so you see new faces all of the time, but you feel "at home" soon as the 2 sweetest dogs on the premises are everybody"s...