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 Plateros it runs 264 km to Plateros; allow about 4 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Historic Centre of Zacatecas, Cacai Mutijé, Cupuri Mutiu and back through Cacai Mutijé. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Plateros is a small town on the edge of the high desert plateau in Zacatecas, a few kilometres from the silver city of Fresnillo, and it exists, more or less, because of one small figure on an altar. The Santo Nino de Atocha, a child dressed as a pilgrim and carrying a basket and a staff, is revered here as a protector of travellers, prisoners and the sick. The devotion came from Spain, where the original image belongs to the shrine of Atocha in Madrid, and it was carried across the Atlantic by the Spanish miners who came for Zacatecas silver. The sanctuary at Plateros became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Mexico.
Read the complete Sanctuary of Plateros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sanctuary of Plateros is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Zacatecas.
Silver built Zacatecas, and you can see it in every street. The city lies in a narrow ravine at around 2,400 metres on the high plateau of north-central Mexico, founded in the 1540s after Spanish prospectors found rich silver veins in the surrounding hills. For centuries the mines here poured wealth into the Spanish crown, and the miners and merchants spent their share on churches, mansions and plazas of pinkish quarried stone. The centre became a World Heritage Site in 1993, and the city is also on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the long colonial road that ran from Mexico City to New Mexico.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Zacatecas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Zacatecas comes up about 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cacai Mutijé.
Out here on the high plateau west of Zacatecas the land is all wide sky, nopal, mesquite and red-brown earth, and it takes a while to understand that you are standing on a pilgrimage path. Cacai Mutijé is one of the sacred places of the Wixárika, the people outsiders long called Huichol, on the route their pilgrims follow from their home communities in the Sierra Madre Occidental across Zacatecas to Wirikuta, the desert of San Luis Potosí where they gather hikuri, the peyote cactus, and where in their cosmology the sun was born. The path has been walked for centuries and was recognised by UNESCO only recently, which tells you something about how long the rest of the world took to notice.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach Cacai Mutijé. Next is Cupuri Mutiu.
Jerez de García Salinas is the reason most riders end up here, and it is a happy accident if they do. This colonial town in the west of Zacatecas state, a couple of kilometres from the point, is a Pueblo Mágico with a leafy plaza, an ornate little theatre, the Teatro Hinojosa, said to be modelled on Ford's Theatre in Washington, and the childhood home of Ramón López Velarde, the poet whose verses about provincial Mexico every schoolchild there knows. Jerez is a ranchero town at heart, with saddle makers, boot shops and men in hats, and the Easter fair with its horses and music draws people from across the region.
Read the complete Cupuri Mutiu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cupuri Mutiu, about halfway. Next is back through Cacai Mutijé.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cacai Mutijé sits at 180 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Zacatecas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Zacatecas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Zacatecas comes up about 198 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sanctuary of Plateros.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sanctuary of Plateros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sanctuary of Plateros closes the day.
Sanctuary of Plateros → Historic Centre of Zacatecas is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centre of Zacatecas → Cacai Mutijé is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cacai Mutijé → Cupuri Mutiu is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cupuri Mutiu → back through Cacai Mutijé is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cacai Mutijé → back through Historic Centre of Zacatecas is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Zacatecas → Sanctuary of Plateros is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.