I have never been so relieved to see a row of terracotta roofs in my life. After a three-hour drive from Seville, during which I managed to get spectacularly lost on what I can only describe as a goat track pretending to be a road, I finally spotted the unmistakable white walls and terracotta tiles of our holiday home in Isla Cristina. The satnav had given up on me somewhere near Lepe, which I took as a personal slight, and I had spent the previous forty minutes following a tractor whose driver seemed to find my predicament genuinely hilarious. He kept gesturing at various turnings with the kind of vague enthusiasm that suggested he had no idea where I was going either.

The mishap, though, came at the very end. I had been warned about the narrow streets. I had been told to park in the designated space. What nobody had mentioned was that the key safe code would be written on a scrap of paper in my wife's handbag, and that my wife was currently sunning herself on a beach in Portugal with her sister. A quick, panicked phone call established that she had indeed photographed the code, had sent it to me, and that I had received it on a WhatsApp message I had never opened because it contained nothing but numbers and I assumed it was spam. There I stood, in the blazing Andalusian afternoon, arguing with a key safe while a small audience of locals gathered with the relaxed interest of people who had seen this many times before.

The first to approach was Pepe, who introduced himself as the unofficial mayor of the street. He was perhaps seventy, wore a vest that had seen better decades, and carried a small dog named Fidel who appeared to be asleep at all times. Pepe spoke no English, I spoke barely any Spanish, and together we achieved a kind of beautiful misunderstanding that lasted a full twenty minutes. He was convinced I had locked myself out of my own house. I was trying to explain it was a rental. Fidel woke up briefly, judged me, and returned to sleep. Eventually Pepe produced a mobile phone and called his daughter, Maria, who arrived on a scooter within minutes and translated with the weary efficiency of someone who had done this many times for her father.

Maria was studying marine biology in Huelva and had returned home for the summer with what she described as "an unacceptable number of barnacle-related facts." She took charge of the situation with admirable authority, located my WhatsApp message, opened the key safe, and then refused to leave until she had given me a detailed briefing on the best fish restaurant within walking distance. Her father nodded along sagely, adding commentary that Maria largely ignored. "He thinks you should eat the fried squid," she said. "He is correct, but he thinks this about everything."

By now our audience had grown. An elderly woman named Concha appeared with a plate of homemade mantecados, which she pressed upon me with the insistence of someone who would not tolerate refusal. She spoke almost entirely in questions, I discovered, even when making statements. "You are too thin?" she observed, handing me a third biscuit. "You will eat more?" I ate more. Fidel briefly opened one eye in what I choose to believe was solidarity.

The key turned, the door opened, and a cheer went up that I frankly did not feel I had earned. Pepe insisted on carrying my smallest bag, which contained nothing but flip-flops and a sun hat, with the ceremony of a pallbearer. Maria wrote down her phone number and told me to call if I needed anything, "but especially if you see an interesting shell on the beach, I am collecting data." Concha pressed more biscuits into my pockets. The tractor driver, it transpired, had followed me all the way and was now leaning against a wall with a beer, raising it in what I can only assume was triumph.

I stood in the doorway of a charming, simply furnished house with cool tiles underfoot and the faint smell of jasmine from the small patio, surrounded by new acquaintances who felt already like old friends. The goat track, the satnav rebellion, the key safe fiasco, all of it had dissolved into something better than smooth arrival could ever have provided. I had come to Andalusia for sunshine and seafood, but it was the people who had already made the journey worthwhile. Fidel, I noticed, had been carried inside with my luggage and was now asleep on the sofa, which Pepe explained was "his favourite, he will visit often." I decided not to argue. Some things, I was learning, simply belong to the rhythm of a place, and I was happy to find my place within it.