Schwups, there it is already standing next to you, the pig: knee-high, dusty, elephant-grey skin - and surprisingly warm, like a small oven.

Pigs cannot sweat, not even Ibérico pigs.

However, this one here doesn't want a cooling bath on this fresh morning, but a little massage.

It has learned that people like to be stroked, sometimes they even give a massage.

So it stands calmly and expectantly next to a visitor - and gets the desired beating.

The pig-human encounter takes place on a "dehesa" - a kind of forest pasture on which holm and cork oaks stand at large intervals.

They characterize the mountainous terrain of the Sierra de Aracena in northern Andalusia.

They are populated by the original breed of the Iberian domestic pig, which is much more athletic and long-snouted than its overbred counterparts from the 20th century.

This morning, not far from the ham town of Jabugo, they are snorting and digging in the dust.

Busy, almost a bit hectic, they run back and forth, their little eyes hidden behind sweepingly shaped ear flaps.

As a rule, tourist visitors pay no further attention to them, at most they are obstacles on the way to the next acorn.

That is the main occupation of the pigs: to eat their fill of acorns,

A comfortable pig life

In the end, of course, the animals will not survive the winter because of the acorn fattening - but end up as a ham delicacy in a "Jamonería".

Until then, however, they will live an unusually comfortable pig life: grown up in a family association, in the last phase of life only spoiled with acorns freshly fallen from the trees, with mud and bathing places to cool and root.

And with lots and lots of space: one hectare of exercise and foraging area is required for the suppliers of the real "Jamón Ibérico" - not per herd, but per animal.

When the little groups get together in a small space at night, it's because that's how they prefer to sleep: snuggled up together, a cozy oven group.

For people, the gently hilly cultural landscape of the Sierra de Aracena is particularly suitable for hiking.

Countless paths lead through the shady forests, along cultivated or overgrown dehesas, where not only pigs but also cattle and sheep feast.

You often walk through sunken paths or along old, moss-covered dry stone walls that mark the boundaries between the forest pasture sections and prevent pigs and sheep from roaming too far.

It is a landscape all of its own, characterized by colors like those found on old paintings or tapestries: the sonorous dark green of the oaks, the silvery turquoise of the lush lichens, plus the velvety moss green and the gnarled brown holm oaks.

As a splash of color, the dark orange of freshly peeled cork oaks catches the eye everywhere.

The air: spicy and brittle.

You can imagine her impregnating a ham until it takes on the flavor.