The Segura valley around Calasparra and Cieza has been a corridor for as long as people have walked through southern Spain, and the sites known as Arco I and Arco II are two of the shelters that belong to it. Cieza lies thirteen kilometres to the east, and it is a town with a long past: before the Christians took it in the thirteenth century it was Medina Siyâsa, a walled Islamic city of some importance, and the ruins of the old quarter have been excavated on the hill above the river. The town's museums are a useful stop, and Cieza has fuel, shops and cafés.
Cieza was also, for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a centre for esparto grass, the tough, wiry plant that grows on the dry slopes here and was twisted into rope, baskets, sandals and mats. The hills around you were once harvested by hand, and the tradition is remembered in the town. It is a modest, humane piece of history, the kind that helps you understand why this dry country supported so many people.
On the road, the pleasure is in the open space. The roads run across low ridges and down into the valley with a mix of straights and long bends, there is little traffic, and the warm, clear light turns the hills a soft ochre. Take care at junctions with field tracks, where gravel and dust accumulate, and be careful of the midday heat in summer. April, May, October and November are the best times for a ride.
Calasparra, eleven kilometres to the west, is the other possible fuel stop. Its rice, grown on terraced fields watered by the Segura, is celebrated across Spain, and there is a sanctuary of the Virgin of Hope clinging to the cliff above the river. As for the shelter, it is small and protected, so ask locally before you go, take water, and tread gently.