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.
A 138 km round trip from María - roughly 2 h 23 in the saddle. On the way it passes Abrigo de la Esperilla, Yedra, Izquierda E. de Santonje and Lázar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Cueva Ambrosio belongs to the high, empty north of Almería province, on the dry plateau where Andalusia runs into Murcia, fifteen or so kilometres out of Vélez-Blanco. This is a landscape of broad, pale fields, almond and cereal farms, low limestone ridges and long skylines, with the pines of the Sierra María to the south and almost nothing built on the horizon.
Read the complete Cueva Ambrosio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva Ambrosio is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de la Esperilla.
Almería is known for its beaches and desert, but the north of the province holds a different landscape: high, dry limestone mountains with pine forests, almond groves and a series of rock shelters where prehistoric people painted. The Sierra de María-Los Vélez rises above two thousand metres, and around the town of Vélez-Blanco several shelters preserve paintings of the Levantine style, with small, lively red figures of hunters, animals and humans. UNESCO lists Spain's Levantine rock art as a World Heritage Site, and the Abrigo de la Esperilla is one of those painted places.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Esperilla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Abrigo de la Esperilla comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Yedra.
In the souvenir shops of Almería there is a little stick figure with outstretched arms and a rainbow arching over his head, and it comes from here. This is the Indalo, a prehistoric painting found in the Cueva de los Letreros near Vélez-Blanco, and it has become the emblem of the whole province, painted on houses and doors and carved on bracelets. Nobody knows quite what it meant, though some say it was a charm against storms. Yedra is a nearby shelter, a short drive from the village, and belongs to the same group of rock art sites that UNESCO lists as part of the Mediterranean Basin tradition.
Read the complete Yedra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 35 km into the recorded legs you reach Yedra. Next is Izquierda E. de Santonje, 17 km on.
The Indalo is everywhere in Almería: a little stick figure holding an arc over its head, painted on houses, sold as a souvenir and used as the symbol of the province. It comes from a rock shelter near Vélez-Blanco, the Cueva de los Letreros, where it was painted in prehistoric times, and the area around the village is rich in rock art, part of the World Heritage rock art of the Mediterranean. The shelters around Santonje, near the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, are among them.
Read the complete Izquierda E. de Santonje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Izquierda E. de Santonje, about halfway. Next is Lázar.
The Vélez comarca in northern Almería sits high and dry, a land of almond trees, steppe and pale limestone ranges that feels more like the Castilian interior than the beach resorts of the south coast. Lázar lies in this country, near the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, within the Sierra María-Los Vélez natural park. The area is known for some of the most important prehistoric art in Andalusia, and the best-known symbol is the Indalo, a little stick figure holding an arc above its head, taken from a painting in the cave of Los Letreros near Vélez-Blanco and adopted as the emblem of the whole province.
Read the complete Lázar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lázar sits at 69 km, about halfway. Next is back through Izquierda E. de Santonje, 17 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Izquierda E. de Santonje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Izquierda E. de Santonje comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Yedra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yedra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Yedra. Next is back through Abrigo de la Esperilla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Abrigo de la Esperilla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Abrigo de la Esperilla, late in the day. Next is Cueva Ambrosio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva Ambrosio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 138 km.
Cueva Ambrosio → Abrigo de la Esperilla is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abrigo de la Esperilla → Yedra is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yedra → Izquierda E. de Santonje is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Izquierda E. de Santonje → Lázar is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lázar → back through Izquierda E. de Santonje is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Izquierda E. de Santonje → back through Yedra is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yedra → back through Abrigo de la Esperilla is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Abrigo de la Esperilla → Cueva Ambrosio is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.