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.
1027 km from Santa Teresa to Santa Teresa, about 17 h 42 of riding. It goes by way of Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata, Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq and back through Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 51 km this is Sacred Valley Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Machu Picchu is the most famous place in the Andes, and it is also one of the hardest to reach for a rider, because no road goes there. The sanctuary is about thirty kilometres from Ollantaytambo, on a ridge nearly twenty-four hundred metres above the sea, above a loop of the Urubamba river, with cloud forest on every side. The citadel is reached only by train or by walking, and then by a bus up a zigzag road from the town of Aguas Calientes, at the foot of the mountain.
Read the complete Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu is where the day begins. Next is Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata.
This is a stretch of the Inca road, and it is made for feet. The Qhapaq Ñan was the great road system of the Inca empire, more than thirty thousand kilometres of stone causeways, steps, bridges and tunnels linking the Pacific coast to the high Andes and from Colombia down to Chile and Argentina. UNESCO listed the network across six countries in 2014. The segment between Mach'ay and Samarinapata runs through the mountains of the Cusco region, west of Machu Picchu, and its name tells the story. A mach'ay is a cave, and samarina is a place to rest, so the route marks shelters and stopping points for travellers and for the chasquis, the relay runners who carried messages and goods at great speed across the empire.
Read the complete Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata comes up about 200 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq.
Apurímac is a Quechua word that means the speaker of the gods, or the great speaker, and it is the name of the river whose canyon you cross, deep and loud, on any road between Cusco and Abancay. The region around Abancay is one of the least visited in the southern Andes, and I find that its character is mostly vertical: valleys at 2,000 metres with sugar cane and avocados, then switchbacks climbing into puna grassland above 4,000 metres where the wind is cold and the llamas look at you without interest. The abra in the title, Spanish for a mountain pass, is one of those high crossings, and the Inca road, the Qhapaq Ñan, runs over or near it.
Read the complete Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 514 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq. Next is back through Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata, late in the day. Next is Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu. That is the ride.
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu → Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata is 200 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata → Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq is 314 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Abra Choqetakarpu-Toroyoq → back through Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata is 314 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Inca Mach’ay-Samarinapata → Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu is 200 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.