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.
A 386 km round trip from San Marcos - roughly 7 h 48 in the saddle. It goes by way of Segment Ayash - Taulli, Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata, Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash and back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Three thousand years ago, priests at Chavín de Huántar led pilgrims into a labyrinth of dark stone galleries beneath a temple, where at the heart of the maze stood a carved granite pillar, the Lanzón, depicting a fanged deity. The Chavín culture, flourishing between roughly 1200 and 500 BC, spread its art and religious ideas across much of the Andes, and its temple complex in the Mosna valley is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, inscribed by UNESCO in 1985. Look out for the cabezas clavas, carved stone heads that once projected from the temple walls, showing a transformation from human to jaguar or bird.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chavín is where the day begins. Next is Segment Ayash - Taulli.
East of the Cordillera Blanca, the Andes break into a jumble of high plateaus and deep valleys draining toward the Marañón and the Amazon, and the Inca road ran through this country on its way from Cusco to Quito. The Ayash to Taulli segment is a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan in the highlands of Huánuco, near the town of Llata, part of the UNESCO-listed Andean road system. It runs through the puna, the high grassland above the tree line, where the wind blows cold and the views stretch for miles over ridges and valleys. In places, the original road survives, with stone paving, retaining walls, steps and drainage channels, and walking a section of it is the best way to understand how the Incas moved people and goods across this vertical landscape.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Ayash - Taulli comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata.
The Qhapaq Ñan, the great road network of the Inca Empire, ran for thousands of kilometres along the Andes, linking the capital Cusco with the far corners of an empire that stretched from Colombia to Chile. In the department of Huánuco, in central Peru, one of its best preserved sections crosses the high puna between the administrative centre of Huánuco Pampa and the valleys to the north, and the segment between Taparaku and the Tambo de Llata is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata. Next is Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash.
Three and a half thousand metres up, on the cold grass plateau of the Peruvian Andes, the Incas built a city that was never meant to be a home. Huánuco Pampa was an administrative centre, a stop on the great road between Cusco and Quito, with a vast central plaza, an ushnu platform from which officials presided over ceremonies, rows of long halls for visitors and hundreds of storehouses lined up on the hillsides. The people who staffed it were moved in from elsewhere, and the labour they owed was paid in cloth, maize and llama wool that fed the road and the army.
Read the complete Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata sits at 118 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Ayash - Taulli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli comes up about 317 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chavin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chavín closes the day.
Chavín → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata → Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash is 108 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash → back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata → back through Segment Ayash - Taulli is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli → Chavin is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.