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 Ipiales it runs 392 km to Ipiales; allow about 7 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Chitarran, Los Ajos, La Paz and Inantaz. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Rumichaca means stone bridge in Quechua, and the name is literal: here the Carchi River, which becomes the Guáitara on the Colombian side, flows beneath a natural arch of rock that has carried travellers between what are now Colombia and Ecuador for centuries. The Inca road passed this way, and a segment of the Qhapaq Ñan near the crossing is part of the World Heritage listing. Today the main border post between the two countries sits right here, with the modern bridge carrying the Pan-American Highway beside the old crossing.
Read the complete Segment Rumichaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Rumichaca is where the day begins. 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.
Chitarrán comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Los Ajos. Next is La Paz.
There are several places named La Paz in Colombia, and this one is a small settlement in the department of Nariño, near the town of Contadero, in the high country close to the Ecuadorian border. Nariño is the land of the Pastos, the indigenous people who farmed these cold uplands before the Inca arrived, and it lies on the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road system that UNESCO listed in 2014. The road here follows the route that ran north from Quito toward Pasto, crossing deep canyons and high plateaus, and the old Inca line is part of the story of a landscape where cultures have met and mixed for centuries.
Read the complete La Paz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Paz, about halfway. Next is Inantaz.
Tangua and Yacuanquer are small highland towns in the department of Nariño, in the far south-west of Colombia, and Inantaz sits among their fields at roughly the latitude of the equator, on high ground above the valley of the Guáitara. This is the Andean altiplano of Nariño, a patchwork of potato, maize and pasture fields on steep slopes, with volcanoes rising behind. Galeras, the active volcano above Pasto, is not far to the north-east, and on a clear morning its cone dominates the view.
Read the complete Inantaz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Inantaz sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through La Paz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Paz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Paz comes up about 239 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Los Ajos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Los Ajos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 296 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Los Ajos. 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, late in the day. Next is Segment Rumichaca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Rumichaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 392 km.
Segment Rumichaca → Chitarran is 36 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 → La Paz is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Paz → Inantaz is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Inantaz → back through La Paz is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Paz → back through Los Ajos is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Los Ajos → back through Chitarran is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chitarran → Segment Rumichaca is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.