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 Huachis it runs 328 km to Huachis; allow about 7 h 50 of riding. It goes by way of Chavin, Segment Cajay - Huaritambo, Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana and back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
East of the Cordillera Blanca, the Andes break into a jumble of high plateaus and deep valleys draining toward the Marañón and the Amazon, and the Inca road ran through this country on its way from Cusco to Quito. The Ayash to Taulli segment is a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan in the highlands of Huánuco, near the town of Llata, part of the UNESCO-listed Andean road system. It runs through the puna, the high grassland above the tree line, where the wind blows cold and the views stretch for miles over ridges and valleys. In places, the original road survives, with stone paving, retaining walls, steps and drainage channels, and walking a section of it is the best way to understand how the Incas moved people and goods across this vertical landscape.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Ayash - Taulli is where the day begins. Next is Chavin.
Three thousand years ago, priests at Chavín de Huántar led pilgrims into a labyrinth of dark stone galleries beneath a temple, where at the heart of the maze stood a carved granite pillar, the Lanzón, depicting a fanged deity. The Chavín culture, flourishing between roughly 1200 and 500 BC, spread its art and religious ideas across much of the Andes, and its temple complex in the Mosna valley is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, inscribed by UNESCO in 1985. Look out for the cabezas clavas, carved stone heads that once projected from the temple walls, showing a transformation from human to jaguar or bird.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chavín comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Cajay - Huaritambo.
Few riders ever get this far into the Conchucos, the deep valleys on the eastern side of Peru's Cordillera Blanca, and that is half the reason to come. The label refers to a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network that ran for thousands of kilometres along the Andes, here crossing between the hamlet of Cajay and Huaritambo, whose name preserves the word tambo, the waystation where runners and travellers on imperial business could rest, eat and change loads. Parts of the paving, retaining walls and drainage channels still survive on slopes where it is hard to imagine anyone building anything at all.
Read the complete Segment Cajay - Huaritambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 99 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. Next is Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana.
Five hundred years ago a runner could have passed this spot carrying a knotted quipu or a message for the governor in Huánuco Pampa, handing it on at the next post in a relay that crossed the Andes faster than a horse. This short stretch, catalogued as segment QÑ-HH-051 near Inca Misana, is a fragment of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road system that linked an empire from southern Colombia to central Chile. The whole network was listed by UNESCO in 2014 across six countries, and what you find on the ground here in Ancash is often modest: a line of stone paving, a retaining wall, a set of steps cut into a slope, running across high grassland with the mountains standing all around.
Read the complete Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Cajay - Huaritambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chavin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chavin comes up about 278 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Ayash - Taulli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Ayash - Taulli closes the day.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Chavin is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chavín → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → back through Chavin is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chavin → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.