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.
184 km from Ipiales to Ipiales, about 3 h 45 of riding. On the way it passes Chitarran, Los Ajos and back through Chitarran. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 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.
Back at Segment Rumichaca. That is the ride.
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 → 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.