There is a corner of the Vero valley where the road begins to remind you of Pyrenean country, and Muriecho, five kilometres from Alquézar and a little to the east, is on the edge of it. The shelter listed as Muriecho E2 is the second in its series in this area, and belongs with the painted rocks of the Vero that UNESCO placed on its World Heritage list in 1998. The village of Muriecho itself is one of the many small settlements in this part of Huesca that lost most of their people in the twentieth century, as the young moved to Zaragoza, Barcelona or abroad.
Depopulation is the quiet story of the high Aragonese countryside. Houses that once held large farming families stand locked and shuttered, terraces that once grew wheat and vines have returned to oak, and the old paths that tied the hamlets to each other are slowly disappearing. In recent decades newcomers, walkers and a growing number of summer visitors have brought some life back, and people are rebuilding houses. A rider is a witness to this change, in the shape of a handsome stone church with no village around it, or a mule track that stops at a pile of rubble.
On the road, expect modest challenges. The connecting roads from Alquézar are narrow and unlined, rising and dropping across the grain of the land, and the bends have a way of tightening just when you think you can relax. Cattle sometimes wander over the road, and in autumn the surface can be slippery with fallen leaves and acorns. If it has rained, give extra distance to anything that looks green.
Fuel is available at Barbastro, nearly twenty kilometres away, and you pass a handful of small villages on the way with bars that open sporadically. Barbastro has the cathedral, the Somontano wine cooperatives and a long arcaded square. Carry water, and do not trust a phone map to know which tracks are open to vehicles.