Sometimes the best way to read a landscape is to follow the water. East of Calasparra the Segura has cut its path through red and grey rocks, and the country on either side rises into a dry upland of pine, esparto grass and rock. Arco II lies in that district, a short walk from Cueva de las Cabras, and a rider arriving by the back roads feels the kind of silence you only get in places with very little to sell.
The roads are the easy part. Broad, empty and warm, they run between farmland and barren slope with few buildings and not much traffic, and you will often find that your only company is a kestrel hovering over the verge. The corners are open and obvious, which is good for sightseeing, and the surface is decent, though in places gravel from field tracks lies in the bends. Spring and autumn are best, because midsummer is genuinely hot and the light flattens everything into a white glare by noon.
Calasparra lies eleven kilometres away and is the place to refuel, eat and top up water. Its fame is its rice, grown with water from the river on terraces below the town, and in a bar you can usually order a dish of it with rabbit or vegetables for what feels like very little money. Cieza and Abarán, a little further, are fruit towns with long histories of cultivation, and Cieza in February has a spectacular bloom of peach trees that can turn the valley pink.
The shelters in this region belong to the Levantine tradition, small red paintings under natural overhangs which were drawn by people who hunted and gathered here after the ice age. They are protected, and some sit on private land or require permits, so ask locally before heading off on foot. The Segura valley has been a route for thousands of years, and you can imagine them walking the same line from the sea to the mountains, looking out over the same wide valley.