Ivy is a modest plant to give a cave its name, but the Cueva de la Hiedra, the Cave of the Ivy, tells you something about the place. On a dry limestone hillside above Huesa, any cave that holds damp enough to grow ivy stands out, and the plant may mark the mouth of a shelter. The cave lies about four kilometres from Huesa and a little more from Quesada, in the folded limestone country between the olive plain and the wooded ridges of the Cazorla natural park.
It is one of the rock shelters in the district that carry prehistoric paintings, part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art listed by UNESCO in 1998. As with others in the Quesada area, the shelters are small and fragile, and the figures are faint, so a local guide or the municipal tourist office is the best way to arrange a visit. The ride goes on to the Fuente del Sabuco and the Cerro de la Caldera, two more sites in the same hills.
Huesa itself is a tidy village of about twenty-seven hundred people, with a main street, a few bars and a baker, and the cooking of the region is straightforward and good: bread, olive oil, game, lamb and the sweet pastries of Jaén. In this part of Andalusia, the olive harvest in winter shapes the year, and in the months of November to January the roads are busy with tractors and the air smells of oil and crushed leaves.
The roads between Huesa and Quesada cross olive terraces and low passes, with easy bends, a surface that is generally good with patched sections, and almost no traffic. Beyond, in the Sierra de Cazorla, the roads climb into pine forest with tighter turns and long views. Summer heat is severe in the olive plain, with temperatures that can reach forty degrees, so ride early. The best seasons are spring, with its flowers, and autumn, with its warm light.
Quesada, with nearly six thousand people, is the likely place for fuel and a proper lunch, and its museum to the painter Rafael Zabaleta is a good rainy-day option. Take water and a little food, since the lanes up to the shelters have no services.