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.
483 km from Gualmatán to Gualmatán, about 8 h 36 of riding. On the way it passes Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala, Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma and back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Colombia into Ecuador - carry ID and check the toll rules. 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 Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
The province of Carchi, at the northern tip of Ecuador, is high, green and cool, a land of potato fields, dairy farms and páramo, the high-altitude grassland of the Andes. The Inca road ran through here on its way north, and the segment between La Paz and the Quebrada Tupala is one of the Ecuadorian sections of the Qhapaq Ñan listed by UNESCO. Near the village of La Paz, a natural cave in the rock, the Gruta de La Paz, has been turned into a shrine to the Virgin, with a church inside the cave, and it draws pilgrims from across the region.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma.
The equator runs across northern Ecuador, a short ride from Quito, and the hills east of the capital, around Cayambe, hold some of the most interesting ancient sites in the country. This segment of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network recognised by UNESCO, links the pucará at Campana and the hill of Quitoloma, and the word pucará means fortress in Quechua. The Inca extended their empire into this region late, in the decades before the Spanish conquest, and they met fierce resistance from the local peoples, the Caranquis, who fought from hilltop forts. The landscape bears the marks of those wars in earthworks, ramparts and ditches on the hills.
Read the complete Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma. Next is back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala, 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 → Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma is 150 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Campana Pucará - Quitoloma → back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 155 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → La Cofradía is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.