Few place names sound as folded into the landscape as Mallata, and the shelter called Mallata III sits in a patch of oak and rock about four and a half kilometres from Alquézar. I take mallata to be a local word for a sheepfold, which would make sense, because the rock overhangs of the Vero valley served for thousands of years as natural barns, and shepherds put up a stone wall across the mouth and kept their flocks there overnight. Before the shepherds came, hunters used the same overhangs, and some of them painted on the walls. Those paintings are part of the Levantine tradition recognised by UNESCO in 1998.
The shepherds have a story to tell as well. Transhumance, the seasonal move of flocks between lowland winter pastures and high summer grass, shaped the paths and the economy of this country for centuries. In the Sierra de Guara it meant a slow walk up from the Somontano plain to the Pyrenean meadows in June and a return in October, along tracks that are still marked on maps as cañadas. A handful of flocks still make the trip, mostly by truck these days.
Riding here is a matter of picking the hour. In midsummer the pass of the A-1232 above Alquézar is a snail's pace of cars and minibuses at ten in the morning and nearly empty at seven. In the shoulder seasons you meet a few other bikes and an occasional group of cyclists in bright shirts. The surface is mostly good, though a few patches are rough, and the bends are best taken a little slower than you think necessary.
A packed lunch from a baker, with ham and cheese and a piece of fruit, will be far better than anything you can find along the way, and water is essential if you walk.