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 458 km round trip from El Ángel - roughly 9 h 47 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala, Segment Pulcas - Troya A, Chitarran and Los Ajos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Ecuador into Colombia - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Northern Ecuador is where the Andes narrow and the country almost touches Colombia, and this stretch between Juan Montalvo and Cabuyal lies in the highland province of Carchi, not far from the little town of El Ángel. The area sits in the shadow of the páramo, the cold, treeless grassland above the forest line, where frailejones, the tall, silvery, furry-leaved plants, stand like crowds of strange sentinels. The El Ángel Ecological Reserve, a short way off, protects a large stretch of this habitat, and on a cloudy day it feels like another planet.
Read the complete Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal is where the day begins. Next is Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
The province of Carchi, at the northern tip of Ecuador, is high, green and cool, a land of potato fields, dairy farms and páramo, the high-altitude grassland of the Andes. The Inca road ran through here on its way north, and the segment between La Paz and the Quebrada Tupala is one of the Ecuadorian sections of the Qhapaq Ñan listed by UNESCO. Near the village of La Paz, a natural cave in the rock, the Gruta de La Paz, has been turned into a shrine to the Virgin, with a church inside the cave, and it draws pilgrims from across the region.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Pulcas - Troya A.
Tulcán is the last Ecuadorian city before Colombia, a high, cold, windswept place at almost 3,000 metres, and it has one of the strangest sights in the Andes: a cemetery where cypress trees have been clipped into elaborate topiary, with figures, arches and geometric shapes, a tradition started by a local gardener in the 1930s. Near the city, the segment of Inca road between Pulcas and Troya is part of the Qhapaq Ñan World Heritage Site, marking the northern reaches of the Inca road system, which extended into what is now southern Colombia.
Read the complete Segment Pulcas - Troya A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 115 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Pulcas - Troya A. Next is Chitarran.
In the high Andes of southern Colombia, near the border with Ecuador, the Inca road network reached its northern limit. The Qhapaq Ñan, as the system is called, stretched from here to central Chile, and a few segments in the department of Nariño are part of the UNESCO listing of 2014. Chitarrán is one of these, a stretch of old road near the villages of Córdoba, Contadero and Iles, in a landscape of green hills, ravines and patchwork fields at altitudes of over two thousand metres.
Read the complete Chitarran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chitarran, about halfway. Next is Los Ajos.
Pasto sits at the foot of Galeras, an active volcano of more than 4,200 metres that has rumbled and smoked on and off for centuries, and the farm country around it lies in the shadow of that mountain. Los Ajos is a rural spot in this southern Colombian highland, in the department of Nariño, a few kilometres from the small towns of Yacuanquer and Tangua.
Read the complete Los Ajos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Los Ajos sits at 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chitarran.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chitarran write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chitarran comes up about 272 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment Pulcas - Troya A.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Pulcas - Troya A write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 320 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Pulcas - Troya A. Next is back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala, late in the day. Next is Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 458 km.
Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal → Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → Segment Pulcas - Troya A is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Pulcas - Troya A → Chitarran is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chitarrán → Los Ajos is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Los Ajos → back through Chitarran is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chitarran → back through Segment Pulcas - Troya A is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Pulcas - Troya A → back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment La Paz - Quebrada Tupala → Segment Juan Montalvo - Cabuyal is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.