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 358 km round trip from Yacuanquer - roughly 5 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Rumichaca, Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito and back through Segment Rumichaca. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Colombia into Ecuador - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Pasto sits at the foot of Galeras, an active volcano of more than 4,200 metres that has rumbled and smoked on and off for centuries, and the farm country around it lies in the shadow of that mountain. Los Ajos is a rural spot in this southern Colombian highland, in the department of Nariño, a few kilometres from the small towns of Yacuanquer and Tangua.
Read the complete Los Ajos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Los Ajos is where the day begins. Next is Segment Rumichaca.
Rumichaca means stone bridge in Quechua, and the name is literal: here the Carchi River, which becomes the Guáitara on the Colombian side, flows beneath a natural arch of rock that has carried travellers between what are now Colombia and Ecuador for centuries. The Inca road passed this way, and a segment of the Qhapaq Ñan near the crossing is part of the World Heritage listing. Today the main border post between the two countries sits right here, with the modern bridge carrying the Pan-American Highway beside the old crossing.
Read the complete Segment Rumichaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Rumichaca comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito.
High in the Andes of northern Ecuador, between El Ángel and Pimampiro in the province of Carchi, a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the great road network of the Inca Empire, crosses the páramo, the high grassland that blankets the mountains above the tree line. The Inca built more than thirty thousand kilometres of roads across their empire, from Colombia to Chile and Argentina, linking towns, temples and storehouses, and this northern section, near the empire's frontier, was among the last to be built before the Spanish conquest. The Qhapaq Ñan was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2014 as a transnational site shared by six countries, with hundreds of individual segments, including this one.
Read the complete Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 177 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito. Next is back through Segment Rumichaca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Rumichaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Rumichaca, late in the day. Next is Los Ajos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Los Ajos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Los Ajos. That is the ride.
Los Ajos → Segment Rumichaca is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Rumichaca → Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Loma Virgen - Chiquito → back through Segment Rumichaca is 109 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Rumichaca → Los Ajos is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.