Nerpio sits where three provinces and two regions almost meet, and the roads out of it run in all directions to places that feel quite different. To the south and east the land falls toward Murcia and the dry plains, to the south-west the sierras of Jaén and Granada rise, and to the north the high farmland of Albacete rolls away toward La Mancha. Zona 3, about seven kilometres from the village, is one of the numbered areas used by archaeologists to catalogue the rock shelters of the district, and it lies on the high ground above the Taibilla valley.
The rock art of this district is part of the Mediterranean Basin tradition that UNESCO listed in 1998. What interests me is the way the shelters are spread across a landscape of pine, scrub and bare rock, as though the painters were marking the whole country with signs. The shelters tend to be low overhangs, a place to sit out of the wind, and they are close to springs or streams, which suggests how the people who made them lived.
Riding here is a calm business. Roads climb out of the valley in long, easy bends, run across high plateaux with views to the ridges, and descend into wooded gullies. The surface can be rough at the edges, and the weather changes quickly, with hail and sudden cold in spring and autumn, and snow in winter. The far-off town of Segura de la Sierra, with its castle on a hilltop, and the Renaissance city of Úbeda, which this ride also visits, show how varied the region is.
Nerpio is a village of about sixteen hundred people, with basic shops and bars, and Yeste, a town of about thirty-five hundred people some twenty-seven kilometres away, is the better place for fuel. Segura de la Sierra, about thirty kilometres away, is small but memorable. Local cooking is based on lamb, game and what the shepherds carry: bread, cheese, honey and cured pork.
Go in late spring, when wildflowers cover the plateau, or in the first half of autumn, and take a warm layer in any season.