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 376 km round trip from Huari - roughly 6 h 28 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Ayash - Taulli, Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku and back through Segment Ayash - Taulli. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is where the day begins. Next is Segment Ayash - Taulli.
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 comes up about 92 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku.
The Qhapaq Ñan, the royal road of the Incas, linked an empire that stretched from what is now Colombia to Chile and Argentina, and in the highlands of Huánuco in central Peru one of its best-preserved stretches runs across the high puna between Tambo Chico and Taparaku.
Read the complete Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 189 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku. Next is back through 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.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli, late in the day. Next is 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 at Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. That is the ride.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 92 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku is 97 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku → back through Segment Ayash - Taulli is 97 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 92 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.