I have never been so pleased to see a sat nav give up on me as I was driving into Los Barrios. There I was, humming along to something terrible on Spanish radio, convinced I was about twenty minutes from the villa, when the robotic voice announced I had arrived. I had not arrived. I had, in fact, parked outside a petrol station next to a field of very unimpressed goats. My phone had no signal, my Spanish extends to ordering beer and apologising, and I had just spent the last hour on a road that grew narrower with every optimistic corner. I wound down the window to ask for directions and was immediately hit by a wall of heat that felt like opening an oven to check on a roast. Welcome to Andalusia, I thought. You absolute plum.

The actual property, when I finally found it, turned out to be down a dusty track that my hire car bottomed out on twice. Los Barrios itself sits in that glorious pocket of southern Spain where the hills roll down toward the coast and everything smells of wild thyme and hot earth. The villa was simple, whitewashed, with terracotta pots of geraniums that someone had clearly been watering with religious devotion. I dumped my bags, found the terrace, and stood there with a warm fizzy drink from the boot of the car, feeling very pleased with myself indeed. The goats were forgotten. I was here.

My plan, hatched in rainy Britain with admirable naivety, had been to walk. Every day. Long coastal hikes, dramatic clifftop paths, the full Bryson. I had packed two pairs of walking boots, a hat with a proper neck flap, and enough suncream to whitewash a small chapel. The first morning I set off at seven, partly through virtue and partly because the heat had woken me at half five. The path from the villa led down through olive groves where the trees looked ancient and slightly judgmental, then joined a track toward the coast. By eight I was on a ridge with views across to Gibraltar, that odd little rock poking up from the haze like a forgotten Lego brick. The air was still coolish, the light golden, and I strode along feeling like a proper adventurer.

By half nine I was a puddle. The temperature had climbed with what felt like personal malice. I found a patch of shade under a pine tree and sat there for a good twenty minutes, watching a lizard do push-ups on a rock and wondering at my own stupidity. Back home I walk in drizzle. I walk in that fine British rain that soaks you slowly while you pretend it is not happening. This was different. This was elemental. This was the sun saying, yes, you may walk, but I shall be your constant companion and I do not take breaks.

I adapted, of course. One does. The following days I became a creature of early mornings and late evenings, venturing out when the light was soft and the heat merely enthusiastic rather than murderous. I found a path that wound down toward the coast near Alcaidesa, where the cliffs drop away to little coves you would never reach without a decent scramble and a death wish. I walked the flatter trails around the village itself, where the locals seemed to move with the same sensible rhythm, appearing in the cool hours and vanishing like sensible mirages when the afternoon turned fierce.

There was something quietly humbling about it, if I am honest. I had arrived with my British schedules and my lists, my determination to conquer the landscape through sheer willpower and decent footwear. Andalusia had other ideas. The heat shaped my days more completely than any itinerary. I learned to carry three litres of water, to never trust a cloudless sky, to find joy in a slow amble rather than a march. On my last evening I walked out as the sun lowered, the whole sky turning apricot and rose, and found a spot where I could see the coast curve away toward Africa. The air was warm as bathwater. My shirt was stuck to my back. I had never been so comfortable in my own ridiculous sweatiness.

I drove back to the airport with the sat nav working perfectly, which felt like a small betrayal. The goats, I noted, remained unimpressed.