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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 704 km round trip from Naranjal - roughly 12 h 08 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Paredones - Paredones, Segment San Antonio - San Antonio, Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena and Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Naranjal is the opposite of the high Andes. Down on the coastal plain of southern Ecuador, the air is hot and humid, the land is green and flat, and the farms grow bananas, cacao and, increasingly, shrimp in ponds along the estuaries. Yet the same Inca road system that crosses the mountains near Cuenca came down to this coast, and the segment at Botija Paqui is a stretch of it that UNESCO lists among the Qhapaq Ñan sites. The road was both a highway and a statement, linking distant provinces to the empire's heart.
Read the complete Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui is where the day begins. Next is Segment Paredones - Paredones.
West of Cuenca the Andes fall away towards the Pacific in one of the most dramatic descents on the continent, from the cold lakes and páramo of the Cajas massif to the hot banana plantations of the coastal plain. Paredones, a small Inca site in the Molleturo area on this western flank, takes its name from the stone walls, paredones, that survive among the grass: remains of buildings, enclosures and a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan that crossed these mountains between the highlands and the coast. It is part of the Andean road system inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Paredones - Paredones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Paredones - Paredones comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment San Antonio - San Antonio.
What I can say is that the point lies on the steep western slope of the Andes, in the country between the highlands near Cuenca and the coastal plain, with Naranjal the nearest real town, thirty-odd kilometres off on the lowlands.
Read the complete Segment San Antonio - San Antonio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 155 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment San Antonio - San Antonio. Next is Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena.
The Inca road in Ecuador came down from the high Andes to the coast, and in the south the line passes through hills above the lowlands near Naranjal, a banana and cacao town in the province of Guayas. This stretch, called Hierba Buena in the listing, belongs to the Qhapaq Ñan system, which UNESCO recognised in 2014, and it sits on the western slopes where the cold páramo drops through cloud forest into warm, humid foothills. The segment is paired with another called Botija Paqui, which suggests a path used by travellers and traders linking highland and coast.
Read the complete Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena, about halfway. Next is Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha.
If Mamamag is the top of the climb, Santa Martha is the other end of the story: the foothills where the Andes tip into the coastal plain, thirty-odd kilometres from Naranjal and a long way from anywhere that feels like highland. The air is thicker and wetter here, and the vegetation changes from tussock grass to ferns, bamboo and the dense green of the western slopes.
Read the complete Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha sits at 354 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena comes up about 457 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment San Antonio - San Antonio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment San Antonio - San Antonio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 553 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment San Antonio - San Antonio. Next is back through Segment Paredones - Paredones.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Paredones - Paredones write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Paredones - Paredones, late in the day. Next is Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 704 km.
Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui → Segment Paredones - Paredones is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Paredones - Paredones → Segment San Antonio - San Antonio is 89 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment San Antonio - San Antonio → Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena → Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha is 103 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha → back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena is 103 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Hierba Buena-Hierba Buena → back through Segment San Antonio - San Antonio is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment San Antonio - San Antonio → back through Segment Paredones - Paredones is 89 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Paredones - Paredones → Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.