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.
472 km from Contadero to Contadero, about 8 h 17 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. The line favours views over speed.
There are several places named La Paz in Colombia, and this one is a small settlement in the department of Nariño, near the town of Contadero, in the high country close to the Ecuadorian border. Nariño is the land of the Pastos, the indigenous people who farmed these cold uplands before the Inca arrived, and it lies on the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road system that UNESCO listed in 2014. The road here follows the route that ran north from Quito toward Pasto, crossing deep canyons and high plateaus, and the old Inca line is part of the story of a landscape where cultures have met and mixed for centuries.
Read the complete La Paz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Paz 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 82 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 232 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 Paz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Paz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at La Paz. That is the ride.
La Paz → Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 82 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 Paz is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.