I have never been a fan of airports at six in the morning, and my trip to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria did absolutely nothing to change that opinion. There I was, bleary-eyed at Gatwick, clutching a coffee that tasted like burnt tyres, when I realised I had packed my partner's passport instead of my own. A frantic taxi ride home and back later, I was sprinting through security with my actual passport, my dignity, and a very damp shirt from the April drizzle I'd run through. The only saving grace was that the flight itself was mercifully short, and by mid-afternoon I was stepping off the plane into sunshine that actually felt like sunshine.

The journey from the airport to the property was straightforward enough, though I did manage to miss my stop on the bus because I was too busy staring at a banana plantation and wondering if anyone would notice if I hopped the fence for a snack. The walk back was longer than anticipated, down streets that all looked identical in that particular way Spanish suburbs do, with their white walls and terracotta roofs and the occasional aggressive-looking cactus. I was properly lost for a good twenty minutes, which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.

Wandering down a narrow lane I never would have found on purpose, I stumbled across a tiny shop that appeared to sell nothing but cheese and local wine. The woman running it spoke approximately four words of English and I speak approximately twelve words of Spanish, most of them food-related. Between us we managed to communicate that I wanted cheese, she thought I wanted a lot of cheese, and we eventually settled on a sensible middle ground. That cheese, incidentally, was the best I have ever eaten, smoky and sharp and nothing like the plastic stuff I buy at my local Tesco. I only found her because I took a wrong turn trying to find a main road.

The property itself was up a slight hill, which I felt in my calves after the bus mishap and the cheese detour. First impressions were of a quiet residential area that felt genuinely lived-in, not the tourist bubble I had half-expected. There were locals watering plants on their balconies, a man walking a dog that looked like it had seen things, and the distant sound of someone practising what I choose to believe was flamenco guitar rather than just a very ambitious beginner. The building had that slightly faded charm that comes from actual use rather than careful staging, and I found that enormously reassuring.

I dumped my bags and immediately got lost again, this time on purpose. The area around Las Palmas city has these pockets of ordinary life that guidebooks never mention because they are not trying to sell you anything. I found a park where old men played dominoes with the intensity of chess grandmasters, and a bakery where the woman gave me a free biscuit because I attempted to order in Spanish and apparently mangled it so badly she took pity on me. The biscuit was almond and still warm, and I ate it on a bench watching the light change over the rooftops.

That evening I found my way down to Las Canteras beach almost by accident, following the sound of the sea through streets that narrowed and twisted and occasionally seemed to dead-end into someone's front garden. The beach at dusk was something else entirely, the promenade filling with locals out for their evening paseo, the water turning that particular shade of silver-pink that makes you understand why painters bother. I sat on the sand with my shoes off, still slightly sweaty from all the unplanned walking, and watched a man teaching his daughter to skim stones. She was terrible at it. He was patient anyway. I thought about how I would never have seen any of this if my sense of direction were even slightly better, and how sometimes being rubbish at something leads you exactly where you need to be.

The next morning I set out intending to get lost again, which rather defeats the purpose but I was willing to try.