Nobody lives close to this point, and that is its main fact. It lies in the eastern Sierra Morena, in the wild border country between Córdoba and Jaén, where holm oak and cork oak cover steep, empty hills and the nearest villages, Mestanza, Baños de la Encina and Cardeña, are all more than twenty-five kilometres away. The ride titles link it with the mercury mines of Almadén, whose Royal Forced Labour Gaol and miners' hospital are part of a UNESCO listing shared with Idrija in Slovenia, but Almadén lies far to the north-west, and the connection is a routing choice rather than a neighbourhood.
What the place does offer is the Sierra Morena itself. The range is one of the least visited landscapes in Spain, a wide band of dehesa, scrub and granite where Iberian lynx and imperial eagles survive, and where black vultures nest in the cork oaks. In autumn the mountains echo with the roar of red deer in the rut, the berrea. The roads are narrow, patchy and quiet, with slow bends through oak woods and sudden river crossings. You will meet more cattle and pigs than cars. The Iberian pigs eat acorns in the winter, and that diet is what makes the ham so prized.
Baños de la Encina, a pretty village with a Moorish castle called Burgalimar that dates from the tenth century, is the best point of reference. The castle is one of the oldest and best preserved in Spain, with a ring of towers, and the village below has whitewashed houses. Bailén, to the south, has the larger services, and it was the site of a surprising Spanish victory over a French army in 1808. It is thirty-four kilometres away at least, so you need to plan for fuel. Fill up in Bailén or in Andújar, carry water, and check the weather.
Spring and autumn are the best times. Summer is brutal, with temperatures well above forty degrees by mid-afternoon, and winter nights are cold. If you stop, you will hear birds and wind and little else, and the smell of rock-rose and warm stone fills the air. It is a good place to eat a sandwich and look at an empty horizon.