The drive from Malaga Airport to Iznajar was going swimmingly until it wasn't. My partner, ever the optimist, had declared "we don't need sat nav, the signs are obvious." Reader, they were not. We spent forty minutes circling what I can only describe as a very committed olive grove, watched by a goat who I swear was smirking. By the time we found the turning for Casa Martires, I had developed a deep and personal grudge against Spanish road numbering, and my partner had gone very quiet in that particular way that suggests someone is mentally updating their will.

But then we crested the hill, and there was Iznajar itself, this extraordinary white village clinging to a rocky outcrop above a vast turquoise reservoir. It looked like someone had spilled a bag of sugar cubes down a mountainside and decided to call it home. Casa Martires sat just below the old town, close enough to feel the pulse of the place but tucked away down a narrow lane where even our compact hire car held its breath.

The key was where the owner said it would be, which felt like a minor miracle given our navigational record. We pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into a cool, tiled courtyard that smelled of jasmine and recent rain. My first thought was that we'd accidentally wandered into someone's very tasteful private residence. My second thought was that I hoped they wouldn't mind us staying.

The house unfolded like one of those Russian dolls, each room revealing another surprise. The kitchen had an ancient fireplace big enough to stand in, now home to a rather modern coffee machine that seemed faintly embarrassed by its surroundings. Upstairs, the bedrooms opened onto a terrace where you could practically dip your toes into the rooftops of the village below. I stood there with my terrible airport coffee, watching swallows dart between chimney pots, and felt something in my chest loosen for the first time in months.

We'd planned to unpack properly, maybe have a sensible rest after the journey. Instead, we found ourselves wandering the lanes within the hour, deliberately taking wrong turns. That's how we stumbled upon the tiny plaza with the single bench and the lemon tree dropping fruit onto the cobbles. No map had mentioned it. A local woman nodded at us without surprise, as if strangers regularly appeared in her quiet corner of the world, drawn by the scent of citrus and the need to be nowhere in particular.

The reservoir path, which we'd intended to find properly the next morning, revealed itself that evening when I chased a loose sandal down a slope. We ended up walking the shoreline as the light turned everything gold and rose, watching a fisherman in a small boat who seemed to be catching nothing with tremendous patience and no apparent concern.

By the time we found our way back to Casa Martires, the stars were doing something extraordinary overhead, unbothered by light pollution. We sat in that courtyard with bread and cheese and a bottle of local wine that cost less than a London coffee, and I thought about how getting lost had somehow delivered us exactly where we needed to be. The goat, I decided, had been trying to help all along.