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.
A 205 km loop that starts and ends near Latacunga, about 4 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Zumbahua, Quilotoa, Chugchilan and Sigchos. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 3,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 19 km this is Quilotoa Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Latacunga lies at about 2,750 metres in the high Andean valley that the explorer Alexander von Humboldt called the Avenue of the Volcanoes, and the name is hardly an exaggeration. On a clear morning the snowy cone of Cotopaxi, nearly 5,900 metres high, hangs above the plain to the east, with Iliniza and other peaks to the west. The town has a slightly worn, dignified look, with many buildings made from pale volcanic stone and plazas shaded by old trees.
Read the complete Latacunga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Latacunga is where the day begins. Next is Zumbahua.
Zumbahua is a high-altitude village of adobe and corrugated iron, built on a plateau at roughly 3,500 metres in the western Cordillera of the Ecuadorian Andes, and on Saturday it comes alive. The weekly market draws indigenous Kichwa families from all the valleys round about, who walk or ride in from far above the tree line to sell potatoes, barley, wool, guinea pigs and bundles of herbs, and to buy salt, cloth and plastic bowls. The women wear felt hats and woollen shawls in vivid pinks, reds and greens, and the animals have their own section of the market, with sheep and pigs being bargained over in loud, cheerful voices.
Read the complete Zumbahua write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zumbahua comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Quilotoa.
Quilotoa is a hole in the Andes, and what a hole. The caldera is about three kilometres across, with steep walls dropping hundreds of metres to a lake the colour of jade, and the rim sits at roughly 3,900 metres above sea level, high enough that the air thins and the wind cuts. The volcano collapsed in a huge eruption several hundred years ago, throwing ash across the region, and the crater filled with water over time. It is a spectacle that photographs poorly and stuns in person, since the colour of the lake shifts with the light from turquoise to deep green to an almost metallic blue.
Read the complete Quilotoa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Quilotoa. Next is Chugchilan.
Chugchilán sits on the far side of a canyon, which in the Andes means you can see it for an hour before you reach it. The village is at about 3,200 metres, above the deep gorge of the Toachi river, and it has long been a stop on the Quilotoa Loop, the circuit of villages and crater lakes that winds through the western Cordillera south of Quito. Its houses cluster around a small plaza, and the surrounding land is a patchwork of fields, steep pasture and dark scraps of cloud forest that cling to the sides of the canyons.
Read the complete Chugchilan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chugchilan, about halfway. Next is Sigchos.
Sigchos is a market town in the foothills where the high páramo slides into warmer, greener country, and it feels like the end of one world and the start of another. The town sits at around 2,800 metres, on the western edge of the Ecuadorian Andes, with the Toachi canyon dropping away to the north and the road running down toward the subtropical valleys of the coast. It is the last proper settlement on the Quilotoa Loop, and for riders coming round from Chugchilán, it marks the point where the cold, windswept heights give way to terraces of maize, sugar cane and fruit trees.
Read the complete Sigchos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sigchos sits at 82 km, late in the day. Next is Latacunga.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Latacunga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 205 km.
Latacunga → Zumbahua is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zumbahua → Quilotoa is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Quilotoa → Chugchilan is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chugchilán → Sigchos is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sigchos → Latacunga is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.