Most places on a route have one personality. This one has two, because the ride runs between the toy town of Ibi on one side and Alcoy on the other, and the stop itself sits between them in a dry barranc of pine and rock. It is the third of a series of painted shelters here, small overhangs with faded red figures that belong to the Levantine tradition of eastern Spain.
That tradition is one of the great puzzles of European prehistory. The paintings show slim human figures, many with bows, hunting deer, ibex and wild cattle, and occasionally something more mysterious like a ceremonial dance or a gathering. No one can be sure exactly when they were made; the dating is argued over, and the answers run from the end of the Ice Age's aftermath through the early farming period. What everyone agrees on is that they were painted in the open air by people who knew these hills better than any of us ever will. UNESCO placed the group on the World Heritage list in 1998, which is why you will find the shelters signposted and sometimes fenced.
Getting here is a pleasure. The road from Ibi winds up through terraced slopes where old almond and olive trees are slowly being reclaimed by pine, and the gradients stay gentle. There are a handful of bends where you need to pay attention, mostly where the road crosses a dry stream bed, and the surface is generally good. Traffic is thin outside the weekends, when cyclists and walkers arrive from Alcoy and Alicante. October and March are the sweet months, with dry roads, cool air and clear views toward the Mariola ridge.
For fuel and lunch go back to Ibi, a town of around twenty-four thousand, or on to Alcoy. The hills between have a couple of village bars, but nothing you should plan around. Take water for yourself and a hat; the shelters sit in sun for most of the day.
Treat the paintings as you would a very old book left on a shelf: look, take a photograph without flash, and leave the rock alone. They have lasted thousands of years because few people have bothered them.