CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
curated scenic road. red canyon, rock formations, wine country. A one-way ride of 219 km, Salta to Cafayate - roughly 3 h 37 in the saddle. On the way it passes Guachipas and Quebrada de las Conchas. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 28 km this is Quebrada de las Conchas, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Salta calls itself La Linda, the beautiful, and the old centre makes a decent case for it. The city lies in a green valley in the far north-west of Argentina, about twelve hundred metres above the sea, with the Andes to the west and the humid forest edge to the east. The Spanish founded it in 1582, and the colonial core still shows it, with the cathedral's pink facade, the arcaded cabildo on the main plaza and the cafés underneath the verandahs. In the evening the plaza fills with families, buskers and street food, and the empanadas salteñas, small and juicy with beef, are an essential meal.
Read the complete Salta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quebrada de las Conchas point 1 sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Quebrada de las Conchas point 2.
Quebrada de las Conchas point 2 comes up 40 km in. Next is Quebrada de las Conchas point 3.
At least 121 km in you reach Quebrada de las Conchas point 3. Next is Quebrada de las Conchas point 4.
Quebrada de las Conchas point 4, late in the day. Next is Quebrada de las Conchas point 5.
Cafayate is a wine town at about sixteen hundred metres in the Calchaquí valleys of Salta province, in the dry north-west of Argentina, and it is the reward at the end of a long ride south. After days of high desert, salt flats and unpaved passes, you come down into a flat valley full of vines and suddenly there is shade, cold white wine and a plaza where people sit for hours. The mountains stand on both sides, brown and bare, and the light is so clear that distances seem shorter than they are.
Read the complete Cafayate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quebrada de las Conchas point 5 sits at 219 km, late in the day.