Some shelters hide in plain sight, and the covacho esquemático is one of them, a shallow overhang in the limestone above the Río Martín, with a few schematic figures painted in red. Schematic art is the shorthand of prehistory, stripped to essentials: a stick-like human, a dot, a zigzag, a sun disc. It belongs to a later phase than the more naturalistic hunting scenes of the Levantine tradition, and it is found across the Iberian peninsula, here in the district around Alacón and Oliete in Teruel province, which forms part of the Río Martín Cultural Park.
The ride is a pleasure in its own right. This is the Spain that city people call empty, a district of small villages, old stone terraces and wide, quiet landscapes, where it is possible to ride for an hour without meeting another vehicle. The roads curve with the contours of the land and the surface is mostly sound, with patches of gravel and the odd pothole. Distances are longer than they look, and signal is patchy, so carry water and a charged phone. Late spring, when the broom is yellow and the fields are green, is a lovely season, and early autumn brings clear light and cool mornings.
Alacón has only a few hundred inhabitants and Oliete a few more, so do not expect more than a bar or a village shop. Andorra, over twenty kilometres away, is the town for fuel, a meal and a bed, and a good base for exploring the cultural park. Ariño, nearby, has a former opencast mine whose scale is striking, a reminder of how much coal came out of the ground here. The contrast between the delicate painted shelters and the vast industrial pit is part of what makes this corner of Aragón interesting.
When you stop at the shelter, take a few minutes simply to look. The paint has survived because the rock is dry and the site is sheltered, but it is fragile, so keep to the path and do not touch. From the overhang, the view over the valley is calm and wide, with just a hawk in the sky and a faint smell of rosemary on the wind.