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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
494 km from San Marcos to San Marcos, about 8 h 32 of riding. The stops in between: Segment Ayash - Taulli, Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata, Segment Huaricashash - Isco and Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 69 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 136 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata. Next is Segment Huaricashash - Isco.
La Union is a small market town in a high valley of the Huanuco Region, in the central Peruvian Andes, and the Huaricashash to Isco segment lies about eleven kilometres from it, in a landscape of steep terraced hillsides, eucalyptus groves and distant snow peaks. It is the same Inca road network as the neighbouring segments, but this stretch sits close to the greatest Inca site in the region.
Read the complete Segment Huaricashash - Isco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Huaricashash - Isco, about halfway. Next is Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash.
Huanuco Pampa is a place that makes you feel small. On a high plateau at around 3,700 metres, in the central Peruvian Andes, the Incas built one of their largest administrative centres, on the great highway that ran north from Cusco toward Quito. Archaeologists have counted hundreds of storehouses on the surrounding hillsides, once filled with maize, textiles and weapons, and the ruins of a huge central plaza, with a platform called the usnu from which the Inca or his representative could watch ceremonies. It is part of the Qhapaq Nan, the Andean road system recognised by UNESCO in 2014.
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 sits at 248 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Huaricashash - Isco.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Huaricashash - Isco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Huaricashash - Isco comes up about 299 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 356 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata. 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 494 km.
Chavín → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata → Segment Huaricashash - Isco is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Huaricashash - Isco → Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash → back through Segment Huaricashash - Isco is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Huaricashash - Isco → back through Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata is 56 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 67 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.