CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
500 km from Guayaquil to Guayaquil, about 12 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui, Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena, Segment Paredones - Paredones and Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Guayaquil is the biggest city in Ecuador, a hot, noisy and energetic port on the Guayas river, a few degrees south of the equator, and the place where a rider's journey up the coast begins. It is a commercial city, and proud of it. In the nineteenth century, cocoa made fortunes here, and the grand houses and the old customs building along the river recall that boom. The waterfront walk, the Malecón, runs for more than two kilometres along the river with gardens, fountains and a lighthouse, and on a warm evening it is full of families.
Read the complete Guayaquil write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Guayaquil is where the day begins. Next is Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui.
Naranjal is the opposite of the high Andes. Down on the coastal plain of southern Ecuador, the air is hot and humid, the land is green and flat, and the farms grow bananas, cacao and, increasingly, shrimp in ponds along the estuaries. Yet the same Inca road system that crosses the mountains near Cuenca came down to this coast, and the segment at Botija Paqui is a stretch of it that UNESCO lists among the Qhapaq Ñan sites. The road was both a highway and a statement, linking distant provinces to the empire's heart.
Read the complete Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui comes up about 102 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena.
The Inca road in Ecuador came down from the high Andes to the coast, and in the south the line passes through hills above the lowlands near Naranjal, a banana and cacao town in the province of Guayas. This stretch, called Hierba Buena in the listing, belongs to the Qhapaq Ñan system, which UNESCO recognised in 2014, and it sits on the western slopes where the cold páramo drops through cloud forest into warm, humid foothills. The segment is paired with another called Botija Paqui, which suggests a path used by travellers and traders linking highland and coast.
Read the complete Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 172 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena. Next is Segment Paredones - Paredones.
West of Cuenca the Andes fall away towards the Pacific in one of the most dramatic descents on the continent, from the cold lakes and páramo of the Cajas massif to the hot banana plantations of the coastal plain. Paredones, a small Inca site in the Molleturo area on this western flank, takes its name from the stone walls, paredones, that survive among the grass: remains of buildings, enclosures and a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan that crossed these mountains between the highlands and the coast. It is part of the Andean road system inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Paredones - Paredones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Paredones - Paredones, about halfway. Next is Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha.
If Mamamag is the top of the climb, Santa Martha is the other end of the story: the foothills where the Andes tip into the coastal plain, thirty-odd kilometres from Naranjal and a long way from anywhere that feels like highland. The air is thicker and wetter here, and the vegetation changes from tussock grass to ferns, bamboo and the dense green of the western slopes.
Read the complete Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Paredones - Paredones.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Paredones - Paredones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Paredones - Paredones comes up about 322 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 330 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena. Next is back through Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui, late in the day. Next is Guayaquil.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Guayaquil write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 500 km.
Guayaquil → Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui → Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena → Segment Paredones - Paredones is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Paredones - Paredones → Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha → back through Segment Paredones - Paredones is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Paredones - Paredones → back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena → back through Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui → Guayaquil is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.