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.
312 km from Susticacán to Susticacán, about 4 h 57 of riding. The stops in between: Cacai Mutijé, Sanctuary of Plateros and back through Cacai Mutijé. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
In the high dry country of southern Zacatecas, the land is cut by canyons and spiny with mesquite, nopal cactus and agave, and the names of its places are a trail of Indigenous words. They sit in the region between the villages of Susticacán and Tepetongo, in the zone south-west of Zacatecas city where the highlands begin to drop towards the Juchipila valley, and the world around them is that of the Caxcan and Zacateco peoples who held the area before the Spanish arrived.
Read the complete Xurahue Muyaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xurahue Muyaca is where the day begins. Next is 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.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cacai Mutijé comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sanctuary of Plateros.
Plateros is a small town on the edge of the high desert plateau in Zacatecas, a few kilometres from the silver city of Fresnillo, and it exists, more or less, because of one small figure on an altar. The Santo Nino de Atocha, a child dressed as a pilgrim and carrying a basket and a staff, is revered here as a protector of travellers, prisoners and the sick. The devotion came from Spain, where the original image belongs to the shrine of Atocha in Madrid, and it was carried across the Atlantic by the Spanish miners who came for Zacatecas silver. The sanctuary at Plateros became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Mexico.
Read the complete Sanctuary of Plateros write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 156 km into the recorded legs you reach Sanctuary of Plateros. Next is back through Cacai Mutijé.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cacai Mutijé write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cacai Mutijé, late in the day. Next is Xurahue Muyaca.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xurahue Muyaca write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Xurahue Muyaca. That is the ride.
Xurahue Muyaca → Cacai Mutijé is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cacai Mutijé → Sanctuary of Plateros is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sanctuary of Plateros → back through Cacai Mutijé is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Cacai Mutijé → Xurahue Muyaca is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.