The name Los Rumíes looks like the Arabic word rumi, which was once used across the Muslim world for Romans, then for Christians, and the Spanish landscape is full of names like it, left behind by eight centuries of Andalusi presence. The place lies in the dry hills north of the Segura valley, near Calasparra, and the rides that visit it also pass through the wider district of the Abrigo Grande de Minateda, one of the most famous painted shelters in the whole Levantine tradition. The rock art of this corner of Spain is substantial and varied.
The ride is across Murcia's high interior, a country of terraced farmland, pale limestone and low pines, with roads that are mostly broad and empty. Corners are long and open, with only the occasional tight bend where the road drops into a ramblas, the dry watercourses that fill suddenly after a storm. Summer is very hot and winter can be cold at night. Spring brings flowers and a green flush on the slopes, but autumn, when the heat has gone and the air is clear, is better.
Calasparra, eleven kilometres away, is the place for fuel and for a meal, and Cieza, thirteen kilometres, has more services. The Segura gorge near Calasparra, the Cañón de Almadenes, can be seen from a path along the cliff and is one of the most impressive bits of landscape in the region. In Cieza, the ruins of Medina Siyâsa, an Islamic town of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are a reminder of how long Muslim families farmed the valley.
The shelters here, like most, are small and fragile. Some are fenced, some are on private ground, and the paintings are usually faint, so go with realistic expectations and ask locally first. You will find figures of deer, goats and hunters, in red and sometimes black, and there are places where the paint has run in thin lines down the rock.