Aldeaquemada means the burnt village, which tells you something about how rough the Sierra Morena used to be. This is a thinly populated corner of Jaén province, on the edge of the Despeñaperros range, and the shelter named after D. Pedro Mota is one of a large group of painted rock shelters in the hills. The paintings belong to what archaeologists call Levantine and Schematic rock art, small red and black figures of people, animals and symbols made by prehistoric hunters and later farming communities, and UNESCO listed the whole Mediterranean-arc group in 1998.
The ride is the main event. From La Carolina, a town founded in the eighteenth century by King Charles III as part of a plan to settle the dangerous mountain road with colonists, the way climbs into the oak forest and the dehesa, the open woodland of holm oak that supports pigs, deer and the Iberian lynx in its last strongholds. Roads here are narrow, with surfaces that vary from good to sun-cracked, and long, empty stretches between villages. You may meet no one for twenty minutes, except perhaps a flock of sheep or a cyclist on a long climb.
Fuel is the thing to plan. Aldeaquemada has a small population, Santa Elena is not much bigger, and the first reliable town with a full range of services is La Carolina, some twenty-three kilometres away. Fill up there. Summer heat in the Sierra Morena is fierce, so ride in the morning or in spring, when the broom and cistus are flowering and the hills are green and gold. In winter, mist and ice are possible on the higher ground.
Not far north the Despeñaperros gorge marks the old gateway between Castile and Andalusia, a passage so steep and narrow that the Spanish kings had to fortify it. A few kilometres away, the battlefield of Las Navas de Tolosa saw the great Christian victory of 1212 over the Almohad army, and a small visitor centre helps explain it. Bring water and a hat, and give yourself time to look at the shelter in the quiet.