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 150 km round trip from Tangua - roughly 4 h 03 in the saddle. The stops in between: Rosal de Chapal, La Cofradía and back through Rosal de Chapal. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The Andes of southern Colombia look folded rather than carved, a series of green ridges one behind another until the cloud hides them, and Guapuscal Bajo sits in the middle of that country. The name means lower Guapuscal, which implies an upper one higher up the slope, and the pair are small farming settlements in the municipality of Tangua, in the department of Nariño. There is no famous landmark to point to here. The interest lies in the day-to-day landscape, in small terraced plots of potatoes, onions, maize and pasture, in the kids in uniform walking the lanes and the smoke rising from kitchen stoves.
Read the complete Guapuscal Bajo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Guapuscal Bajo is where the day begins. Next is Rosal de Chapal.
High in the department of Nariño, in Colombia's far southwest, the land folds into deep canyons cut by the Guáitara River, and the old Inca road, the Qhapaq Ñan, threads along the slopes. Rosal de Chapal is one of the surviving fragments of that road on the Colombian side, a stretch of track near the small towns of Funes, Iles and Contadero. The Qhapaq Ñan, a network of roads that tied the Inca empire together from present day Colombia to Chile and Argentina, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014, and Nariño holds its northernmost sections.
Read the complete Rosal de Chapal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rosal de Chapal comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Cofradía.
Down in Colombia's far south, close to the border with Ecuador, the Andes spread into a high, rumpled plateau of small fields stitched together by hedges, with deep canyons cut into it by rivers rushing towards the Pacific and the Amazon. La Cofradía lies here in the department of Nariño, between Gualmatán and Contadero, at the height of the old Inca road network, the Qhapaq Ñan, which reached this far north as the empire's frontier pushed into what is now Colombia. A few stretches of the road around here are part of the Qhapaq Ñan World Heritage site.
Read the complete La Cofradía write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach La Cofradía. Next is back through Rosal de Chapal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rosal de Chapal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rosal de Chapal, late in the day. Next is Guapuscal Bajo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Guapuscal Bajo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Guapuscal Bajo. That is the ride.
Guapuscal Bajo → Rosal de Chapal is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rosal de Chapal → La Cofradía is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Cofradía → back through Rosal de Chapal is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rosal de Chapal → Guapuscal Bajo is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.