CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
305 km from Susticacán to Susticacán, about 5 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Cupuri Mutiu, Cacai Mutijé, Macuipa and Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 Cupuri Mutiu.
Jerez de García Salinas is the reason most riders end up here, and it is a happy accident if they do. This colonial town in the west of Zacatecas state, a couple of kilometres from the point, is a Pueblo Mágico with a leafy plaza, an ornate little theatre, the Teatro Hinojosa, said to be modelled on Ford's Theatre in Washington, and the childhood home of Ramón López Velarde, the poet whose verses about provincial Mexico every schoolchild there knows. Jerez is a ranchero town at heart, with saddle makers, boot shops and men in hats, and the Easter fair with its horses and music draws people from across the region.
Read the complete Cupuri Mutiu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cupuri Mutiu comes up 33 km in. 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.
65 km in you reach Cacai Mutijé. Next is Macuipa.
Macuipa lies on the edge of Zacatecas, the silver capital of northern Mexico, and the name points to the sacred geography of the Wixárika, the Huichol people, whose pilgrimage route passes through this region on its way from their homeland in the Sierra Madre Occidental to Wirikuta, the sacred desert in San Luis Potosí. For centuries, Wixárika pilgrims have walked this route, hundreds of kilometres long, visiting springs, hills and rocks where their deities dwell, leaving offerings and performing ceremonies. The route has recently been recognised by UNESCO. Exactly what is to be seen at Macuipa is not easy to say from a distance; treat it as a place where two very different worlds, the Spanish silver city and the indigenous sacred landscape, meet.
Read the complete Macuipa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Macuipa, about halfway. Next is 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.
Read the complete Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali sits at 131 km, about halfway. Next is back through Macuipa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Macuipa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Macuipa comes up 163 km in. 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.
196 km in you reach back through Cacai Mutijé. Next is back through Cupuri Mutiu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cupuri Mutiu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cupuri Mutiu, 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.
The route ends here after 305 km.
Xurahue Muyaca → Cupuri Mutiu is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cupuri Mutiu → Cacai Mutijé is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cacai Mutijé → Macuipa is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Macuipa → Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stretch of the Camino Real between Ojocali → back through Macuipa is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Macuipa → back through Cacai Mutijé is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cacai Mutijé → back through Cupuri Mutiu is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cupuri Mutiu → Xurahue Muyaca is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.