Zona 5 lies seven kilometres from Nerpio, in the same dry valley as the other numbered zones, and belongs to the cluster of rock-art shelters listed by UNESCO in 1998. The paintings here are found at the foot of cliffs facing south, which catch the winter sun.
Segura de la Sierra itself is an extraordinary village, perched on a rock crowned by a castle that was held by the Order of Santiago in the Middle Ages. The Moors left a bathhouse, the Baños Árabes, below the village, and the Christians added a church and a town hall. The village has fewer than two thousand people, many of them elderly, but its streets are lively in summer when visitors come to see the castle and the views over a sea of olive trees stretching to the horizon.
Between Nerpio and Segura de la Sierra the country changes slowly, from the high, dry plateau of the Taibilla into the deeper forested valleys of the Segura headwaters. Roads are narrow but in good order, and the best section is the descent from the plateau into the olive lands, a succession of long, well-banked curves with a view that opens at every bend. In spring the hillsides are bright with broom, and in autumn the colours soften to gold and bronze.
Remember that fuel is scarce. Nerpio may have a pump but it is not something to rely on, and the safest source is Huéscar, thirty-eight kilometres away in Granada province. Yeste, almost twenty-eight kilometres off, has fuel too. A day in this country needs planning, because distances look short on the map and are long on the road. Take water, snacks and a warm layer, and tell someone your route.