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.
578 km from San Marcos to San Marcos, about 10 h 59 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash, Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 and back through Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 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 comes up about 96 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051.
East of the Cordillera Blanca, in the region of Ancash known as the Conchucos, the Inca road system, the Qhapaq Ñan, crossed some of the most rugged terrain of its entire network. This segment, near the small town of Yauya, is part of the main road that ran north from Cusco to Quito through the high Andes, linking administrative centres such as Huánuco Pampa to the south. The Inca engineers laid stone paving, built steps on steep slopes, retaining walls and drainage channels, and stretches of the road can still be walked today, threading across high grasslands and past lakes at altitudes well over three and a half thousand metres. The whole network, which crosses six countries, became a World Heritage site in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 289 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051. Next is back through Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash, 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.
Back at Chavin. That is the ride.
Chavín → Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash → Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 is 193 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 → back through Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash is 204 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Huánuco Pampa - Huaricashash → Chavin is 85 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.