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 428 km round trip from Santa María - roughly 8 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana, San Ignacio Mini, Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de and Nuestra Señora de Loreto. It crosses from Argentina into Paraguay - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Red earth is the first thing you notice in Misiones, the thin finger of northeastern Argentina squeezed between Paraguay and Brazil. The soil is the colour of a brick, the forest is subtropical, and the roads cut through it leave long scarlet stripes on the verge. Santa María la Mayor, a small town of under two thousand, lies in this country, and its main attraction is a ruin the forest nearly swallowed.
Read the complete Santa María la Mayor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Santa María la Mayor is where the day begins. Next is Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana.
Deep in the red earth of Misiones, in the north-eastern tip of Argentina, the forest is slowly reclaiming a mission town. Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana was one of the Jesuit reductions, settlements where Jesuit priests gathered the Guaraní people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, partly to protect them from slave raiders and partly to convert them. The towns were laid out around a central plaza with a church, a school, workshops and houses, and the Guaraní built, carved and played music in a form that mixed European baroque with their own skills. Santa Ana, founded in the 1630s, is among the lesser known, and much of it lies in ruin under trees and vines.
Read the complete Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is San Ignacio Mini.
Red sandstone, carved with angels, vines and saints, rises out of the green jungle of northeastern Argentina at San Ignacio Miní, the best preserved of the Jesuit missions in the province of Misiones. Founded in the early seventeenth century and moved to its present site in the 1690s, the mission was a town for several thousand Guaraní people, organised by Jesuit priests, with a great church, workshops, houses, a school and a plaza. The church's facade, in a style often called Guaraní Baroque, combines European forms with local motifs carved by Guaraní craftsmen. The mission, with others in Argentina and Brazil, became a World Heritage Site in 1983 and 1984.
Read the complete San Ignacio Mini write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 104 km into the recorded legs you reach San Ignacio Mini. Next is Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de.
In the south-east of Paraguay, near the Parana river and the Argentine border, a field of red earth, tall trees and golden sandstone walls marks the site of La Santisima Trinidad de Parana, one of the largest of the Jesuit missions built among the Guarani people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The ruins are about nine kilometres from Hohenau, a small town of just over five thousand people, and not far from Trinidad village and Jesus, where another mission stands.
Read the complete Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de, about halfway. Next is Nuestra Señora de Loreto.
The ruins of Loreto lie in a clearing in the forest of Misiones, in the north-east tip of Argentina, and the forest is slowly winning. Strangler figs and giant roots creep over the red sandstone walls of what was once a church, and the grass grows over the plaza where thousands of Guarani people once lived. Loreto was one of the Jesuit missions, the reducciones, that the Society of Jesus founded in the early seventeenth century in the lands of the Guarani, in what is now Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. This one was moved to its present site in 1632 after raids by slave hunters from Brazil.
Read the complete Nuestra Señora de Loreto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nuestra Señora de Loreto sits at 171 km, about halfway. Next is back through Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de comes up about 275 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through San Ignacio Mini.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete San Ignacio Mini write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 326 km into the recorded legs you reach back through San Ignacio Mini. Next is back through Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana, late in the day. Next is Santa María la Mayor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Santa María la Mayor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 428 km.
Santa María la Mayor → Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana → San Ignacio Mini is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
San Ignacio Miní → Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de → Nuestra Señora de Loreto is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nuestra Señora de Loreto → back through Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jesuit Mission of La Santísima Trinidad de → back through San Ignacio Mini is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through San Ignacio Mini → back through Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nuestra Señora de Santa Ana → Santa María la Mayor is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.