Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali and Cacai Mutijé
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
148 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 40
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 Trancoso it runs 148 km to Trancoso; allow about 2 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal, Cacai Mutijé and back through Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali
The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Royal Road of the Interior, ran for more than two and a half thousand kilometres from Mexico City to Santa Fe in what is now New Mexico, and carried silver, mercury, supplies and missionaries for nearly three hundred years. UNESCO inscribed a series of its sections and sites in 2010, and the stretch near Ojocaliente, in the state of Zacatecas, passes through high, dry country at around two thousand metres, with the town of Trancoso eight kilometres away and the city of Zacatecas to the west.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali is where the day begins. Next is Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal.
2. Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal
Zacatecas was built on silver, and the town next to it, Guadalupe, was built on faith. In the middle of the eighteenth century a Franciscan college was founded here to train missionaries who would go north into the unconquered country, and its big church, cloisters and long galleries still stand on the edge of the city, now serving as a museum of colonial art with paintings, carved altarpieces and religious objects. The college once sent friars as far as Texas and California.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cacai Mutijé.
3. Cacai Mutijé
Out here on the high plateau west of Zacatecas the land is all wide sky, nopal, mesquite and red-brown earth, and it takes a while to understand that you are standing on a pilgrimage path. Cacai Mutijé is one of the sacred places of the Wixárika, the people outsiders long called Huichol, on the route their pilgrims follow from their home communities in the Sierra Madre Occidental across Zacatecas to Wirikuta, the desert of San Luis Potosí where they gather hikuri, the peyote cactus, and where in their cosmology the sun was born. The path has been walked for centuries and was recognised by UNESCO only recently, which tells you something about how long the rest of the world took to notice.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali to Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali → Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal to Cacai Mutijé
Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal → Cacai Mutijé is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cacai Mutijé to back through Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal
Cacai Mutijé → back through Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal to Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali
back through Former college of Nuestra Señora de Guadal → Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.