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.
303 km from Paucarcolla to Paucarcolla, about 6 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani, Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje, Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata and Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The Qhapaq Nan is the great road system of the Inca, a web of paths, causeways and stairways that ran for more than thirty thousand kilometres across the Andes, and a stretch near Puno is part of it. The segment between Paucarcolla and Yanamayo follows the plateau around the northwest shore of Lake Titicaca, where the Inca built a road to link the Collao, the great high plain, with the heart of the empire at Cusco. The route is now part of the UNESCO listing of the Andean Road System, which was granted in 2014 and spans six countries.
Read the complete Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo is where the day begins. Next is Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani.
This segment of the Inca road runs just outside Puno, on the western shore of Lake Titicaca, and it connects with a longer line that leads toward the south and the Bolivian frontier. Yanamayo and Kancharani are small places on the Collao plateau, where the road, now often reduced to a stony track, crosses fields and low ridges. The Inca engineers built it to a standard width, with stone edges in places and stone drains, and some stretches are still clearly visible. For an observer used to modern roads, a path built for walkers and llama trains is an eloquent thing. It ran without wheels, since the Inca had no wheeled transport, and was meant to carry foot messengers, armies and caravans of animals.
Read the complete Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje.
Juli sits on the south-western shore of Lake Titicaca at close to 3,900 metres, and the air is so thin and clear that the far side of the lake, in Bolivia, seems close enough to touch. The town is nicknamed the Rome of the Americas for its cluster of colonial churches, built by Dominican and Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with carved stone façades and dim interiors full of paintings. Just outside town, the segment of Inca road between Juli and Cruz Pata Ccaje is part of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Andean road system inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014. This route, the Urcosuyu branch, ran along the lake towards what is now Bolivia.
Read the complete Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje 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 Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje. Next is Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata.
Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata is a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the great Inca road network, that survives on the high plateau beside Lake Titicaca. The Inca built roads like these across the Andes, stone-paved, with drainage, retaining walls and way stations, to link their empire from Colombia to Chile. On the Peruvian shore near Pomata the road passes through country that was Aymara long before the Incas arrived, and the same communities farm potatoes, quinoa and barley today. The Qhapaq Ñan has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, with sections in six countries.
Read the complete Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata, about halfway. Next is Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua.
At close to four thousand metres, on the Peruvian shore of Lake Titicaca, the air is thin enough that walking briskly feels like work and the light is so sharp it seems to sharpen the edges of everything. This stretch belongs to the Qhapaq Ñan, the great Andean road network that the Inca built and extended across their empire, and here it runs through Aymara farming country between the towns of Yunguyo and Desaguadero, both about twenty kilometres away, with the Bolivian border a short distance east.
Read the complete Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata comes up about 184 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 200 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje. Next is back through Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani, late in the day. Next is Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 303 km.
Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo → Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani → Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje → Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata → Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Arbolera-Parcco Chua Chua → back through Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Ccaje-Sisipampa-Pomata → back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje → back through Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani → Segment Paucarcolla-Yanamayo is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.