Vall d'Ebo is one of those places that history has swept clean. In 1609, when the crown expelled the Moriscos, this valley lost almost all of its inhabitants, and the villages had to be resettled with newcomers from elsewhere, so the terraces and irrigation channels you see on the hillsides were built by people whose descendants were sent away. The Racó de Sorellets is on the heights nearly five kilometres from the village, in a landscape of cliffs and ravines where the shelter walls carry much older marks than any of that.
Close by is the famous Barranc de l'Infern, a gorge with a stepped trail that walkers love, and the roads that lead there are the finest riding in the district. They twist up from Pego through orange groves and almond terraces, the gradient steadying as the valley narrows, and the surface is decent but sometimes patchy where rockfalls have been cleared. Vall d'Ebo is a few kilometres away along a slender road with a series of tight bends and a long view of the sea.
In the other direction, Murla lies in a quieter pocket of the hills, with a small square and a couple of bars, and the village of Castell de Castells is around four kilometres off. All are tiny, with fewer than five hundred inhabitants each, so do not plan on finding fuel on a Sunday. Pego, ten kilometres away, is where to fill up, with restaurants and supermarkets, and its nearby marshes, the Marjal, are a bird-watcher's reserve where the rice is grown.
The shelters here are of the Levantine type, with small red figures that appear under the cliff edge. They tell of people who ranged across the hills in a world with forests of pine and oak where today there is scrub. Do not climb on the rock and do not use chalk or water to highlight the images, which can destroy them. A walk to the shelters, followed by a long lunch in Pego, is a fine day's programme.