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.
From Guadalupe it runs 428 km to Guadalupe; allow about 8 h 02 of riding. It goes by way of Cacai Mutijé, Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali, Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in and Huahuatsari. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Zacatecas was built on silver, and the town next to it, Guadalupe, was built on faith. In the middle of the eighteenth century a Franciscan college was founded here to train missionaries who would go north into the unconquered country, and its big church, cloisters and long galleries still stand on the edge of the city, now serving as a museum of colonial art with paintings, carved altarpieces and religious objects. The college once sent friars as far as Texas and California.
Read the complete Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal is where the day begins. Next is Cacai Mutijé.
Out here on the high plateau west of Zacatecas the land is all wide sky, nopal, mesquite and red-brown earth, and it takes a while to understand that you are standing on a pilgrimage path. Cacai Mutijé is one of the sacred places of the Wixárika, the people outsiders long called Huichol, on the route their pilgrims follow from their home communities in the Sierra Madre Occidental across Zacatecas to Wirikuta, the desert of San Luis Potosí where they gather hikuri, the peyote cactus, and where in their cosmology the sun was born. The path has been walked for centuries and was recognised by UNESCO only recently, which tells you something about how long the rest of the world took to notice.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cacai Mutijé comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali.
The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road of the Interior, ran for more than two and a half thousand kilometres from Mexico City to Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico, and carried silver, mercury, supplies and missionaries for nearly three hundred years. UNESCO inscribed a series of its sections and sites in 2010, and the stretch near Ojocaliente, in the state of Zacatecas, passes through high, dry country at around two thousand metres, with the town of Trancoso eight kilometres away and the city of Zacatecas to the west.
Read the complete Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali. Next is Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in.
Villa González Ortega is a small town on the high plateau of Zacatecas, in north central Mexico, and its church of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores is one of the sites recognised as part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Inland Road. This was the great trade route that linked Mexico City with the silver mines of the north and eventually with Santa Fe in New Mexico, a journey of more than two thousand kilometres across deserts, mountains and plains. For almost three centuries, wagons, mule trains, soldiers, priests and settlers travelled this road, and the towns, churches, haciendas and bridges along it tell the story of the Spanish colonisation of the north. UNESCO listed the route in 2010.
Read the complete Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in, about halfway. Next is Huahuatsari.
Every year, Wixárika pilgrims, the people often called Huichol, walk or travel hundreds of kilometres from their homeland in the Sierra Madre Occidental to Wirikuta, a sacred desert in San Luis Potosí, where they gather peyote and make offerings at sacred places along the way. Huahuatsari is one of the sacred sites on this route, in the high desert near Villa de Ramos. The pilgrimage route has been placed on Mexico's tentative list for World Heritage, and the sites along it are places of prayer, not tourist attractions.
Read the complete Huahuatsari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Huahuatsari sits at 204 km, about halfway. Next is back through Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in comes up about 259 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 320 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali. Next is back through Cacai Mutijé.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cacai Mutijé, late in the day. Next is Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 428 km.
Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal → Cacai Mutijé is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cacai Mutijé → Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali → Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in is 62 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in → Huahuatsari is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Huahuatsari → back through Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores in → back through Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali is 61 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali → back through Cacai Mutijé is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cacai Mutijé → Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.