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 Puno it runs 309 km to Puno; allow about 5 h 39 of riding. It goes by way of Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje, Segment Desaguadero Titijoni and back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Peru into Bolivia - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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 is where the day begins. 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.
Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje comes up about 83 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Desaguadero Titijoni.
At around 3,800 metres above sea level the air on the Altiplano is thin enough to make lacing your boots feel like exercise, and Desaguadero is a place where you should take everything at half speed. The town sits on the border between Peru and Bolivia at the southern end of Lake Titicaca, where the Desaguadero river drains the lake toward the south. The segment of old road near Titijoni is part of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network listed by UNESCO in 2014, which ran along the shores of Titicaca on its way between Cusco and the southern provinces.
Read the complete Segment Desaguadero Titijoni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 152 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Desaguadero Titijoni. 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.
back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje, late in the day. Next is 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 at Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani. That is the ride.
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 Desaguadero Titijoni is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Desaguadero Titijoni → back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Juli-Cruz Pata-Ccaje → Segment Yanamayo-Kancharani is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.