Fuensanta is a place name that turns up all over southern Spain, a holy fountain, and the one on this ride lies in the mountains of the upper Segura, in the border country between Albacete and Murcia. The shelter here, numbered I, is one of the painted sites in the district of Moratalla, a municipality famous among archaeologists for having more rock-art shelters than almost any other in Spain. The paintings are in the Levantine and schematic styles, and the group is part of the UNESCO listing for the rock art of the Mediterranean basin.
The landscape is rugged and sparsely populated. The Sierra del Segura rises in the west, with pine forests and bare limestone, and the rivers carve narrow valleys with olive terraces. Letur, a village to the north, sits on a steep hillside with a labyrinth of Moorish alleys, and Socovos, a little larger, is the other nearby settlement. Both are small, with fewer than two thousand inhabitants each, and between them they offer a bar or two and not much else.
Moratalla, with its castle and about eight and a half thousand people, is the best place for fuel. It is a proper town with a long history, and its Holy Week drumming is famous. The road to it from the hills is a pleasure, with long bends and views over wide valleys of cereal and almond.
Roads in this part of the Sierra are twisting, narrow and rarely busy. Surfaces vary, and in places the tarmac is patched and broken, so a rider should not assume anything about the next corner. Wildlife is plentiful, with deer, wild boar and eagles. The air smells of pine and warm stone, and the nights are dark.
The best time to come is late spring or early autumn, when the temperatures are mild and the light is clear. Winter can be cold and snowy, and summer is hot, with long dry spells. For access to the shelter, ask in the village before setting out, and take water and good boots.