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 Gualmatán it runs 138 km to Gualmatán; allow about 3 h 32 of riding. It goes by way of Chitarran, Guapuscal Bajo and back through Chitarran. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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.
La Cofradía is where the day begins. Next is Chitarran.
In the high Andes of southern Colombia, near the border with Ecuador, the Inca road network reached its northern limit. The Qhapaq Ñan, as the system is called, stretched from here to central Chile, and a few segments in the department of Nariño are part of the UNESCO listing of 2014. Chitarrán is one of these, a stretch of old road near the villages of Córdoba, Contadero and Iles, in a landscape of green hills, ravines and patchwork fields at altitudes of over two thousand metres.
Read the complete Chitarran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chitarrán comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Guapuscal Bajo.
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.
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Guapuscal Bajo. Next is back through Chitarran.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chitarran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chitarran, late in the day. Next is La Cofradía.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Cofradía write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at La Cofradía. That is the ride.
La Cofradía → Chitarran is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chitarrán → Guapuscal Bajo is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Guapuscal Bajo → back through Chitarran is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chitarran → La Cofradía is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.