The village of Sorbas is perched on the very lip of a gorge, with houses crowded to the edge of a gypsum cliff and the Río Aguas curling far below in a horseshoe. From the viewpoints you can see the whole sweep of it, pale rock walls falling away on all sides, with the white houses seeming to teeter above the drop. It is a dramatic setting for a quiet place of about two and a half thousand people, and it looks a lot like a village from a Western with the colour turned up.
The cliffs are the clue to what lies under the hills. The area is a gypsum karst, one of the most extensive in the world, and the soft, soluble rock has been hollowed out into hundreds of caves, among them a system of galleries beneath the village that is open for guided visits. Inside, crystals as clear as glass and cave formations in odd shapes grow in the dark, and the temperature is steady and cool. The Karst en Yesos de Sorbas is a protected natural site, and walks along the river below the town give a close look at the cliffs.
Sorbas is also a pottery town, with a tradition of craft that goes back centuries. Workshops along the main streets make bowls, jugs and tiles in earth-coloured glazes, and many of them welcome visitors. The surrounding land belongs to the Tabernas Desert, often called the only true desert in Europe, a bare, cracked, ochre landscape of badlands and dry riverbeds that has been the setting for hundreds of films, among them many Italian Westerns of the 1960s. Film-set towns, now tourist attractions, lie a short ride to the west, near Tabernas.
The riding is open and spare, with long, quiet roads through dry hills, big skies and sudden views of eroded gullies. Bends are gentle, the surface is usually good, and the traffic is almost nonexistent outside the villages. Summers are fierce, often above forty degrees, so ride early and carry water, while spring and autumn are comfortable, and winters mild but with sharp mornings. Services are thin in the countryside, so top up your fuel in Níjar or Tabernas before heading into the empty stretches, and plan your lunch, since the villages are small and shut in the afternoon siesta. At sunset, the badlands go from yellow to deep orange, and the silence is remarkable.