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 Naranjal it runs 795 km to Naranjal; allow about 16 h 57 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha, Segment Mamamag - Mamamag, Segment Cerro de Cojitambo and Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 60 km this is Avenue of the Volcanoes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 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 comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Mamamag - Mamamag.
West of Cuenca the Andes lift quickly, and the Mamamag label sits on the edge of that rise, about twenty-four kilometres from the city, where the cultivated valleys give way to cold, open páramo. The nearest real town is Cuenca itself, a university city of cobbled colonial streets at roughly two and a half thousand metres, and anything you need, from fuel to a decent soup, you should sort out there before you climb.
Read the complete Segment Mamamag - Mamamag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 188 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Mamamag - Mamamag. Next is Segment Cerro de Cojitambo.
Cojitambo is a rocky hill that rises abruptly above the valley of Azogues, in the province of Cañar, in the southern Andes of Ecuador. Its summit and slopes hold the remains of a Cañari and Inca settlement, with walls, terraces and stairways, and the Inca road ran past it, a segment of the Qhapaq Ñan listed by UNESCO. The Cañari were the people of this region before the Inca conquest, and they resisted fiercely, later siding with the Spanish against their Inca overlords. Today the hill is also a popular spot for rock climbing, with routes on its cliffs.
Read the complete Segment Cerro de Cojitambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Cerro de Cojitambo, about halfway. Next is Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca.
Achupallas is a high village in Chimborazo province, about sixteen kilometres from Alausí, and the walking trail named after it, which runs south towards Ingapirca, is one of Ecuador's best-known treks. For motorcyclists the point is the landscape and the road beside it: bare páramo at over three thousand metres, with the volcanic cone of Sangay on a clear day, and little else but sheep, lupins and the odd shepherd's hut.
Read the complete Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca sits at 198 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Cerro de Cojitambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo comes up about 545 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment Mamamag - Mamamag.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Mamamag - Mamamag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 612 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Mamamag - Mamamag. Next is back through Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha, 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 795 km.
Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui → Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha → Segment Mamamag - Mamamag is 109 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Mamamag - Mamamag → Segment Cerro de Cojitambo is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cerro de Cojitambo → Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca is 149 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Subsection Achupallas - Ingapirca → back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo is 148 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Cerro de Cojitambo → back through Segment Mamamag - Mamamag is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Mamamag - Mamamag → back through Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha is 103 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Santa Martha - Santa Martha → Segment Botija Paqui - Botija Paqui is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.