I have to admit, I was already sweating before we even left Alicante Airport. Not from the heat, mind you, but from the realisation that I had packed three pairs of walking boots and not a single pair of socks. There I stood at the car hire desk, rummaging through my rucksack like a man searching for dignity he never had, while my partner maintained the kind of patient silence that spoke louder than any tut.

The drive to Calasparra took us through proper Spanish countryside, all parched hills and sudden valleys of green where the Segura River cuts through. We were staying in a converted farmhouse just outside the town itself, the sort of place with terracotta floors thick enough to keep your feet cool and a pool that looked suspiciously inviting for eleven in the morning. Our host, Miguel, greeted us with lemonade so tart it nearly took the enamel off my teeth, then gestured proudly at the walking routes he'd marked on a laminated map. "The coastal paths," he said, though Calasparra sits inland, "you drive forty minutes, then walk." I nodded as if this made perfect sense to my heat-addled brain.

That first afternoon, we attempted what Miguel called "the gentle loop" - a three-hour circuit through the olive groves behind the property. The thermometer in the courtyard had read thirty-two degrees when we set off, which I mention only because within forty minutes it felt closer to forty. My "breathable" walking shirt had become a second skin, and I found myself envying the lizards that darted across the path with such effortless indifference. We turned back at a dried-up stream bed, defeated not by distance but by the sheer weight of the air itself. I spent the remaining daylight hours floating in that pool, staring up at swallows tracing impossible patterns against a sky the colour of faded denim.

The weather, it turned out, had plans of its own. Each morning we'd wake to brilliant sunshine and ambitious intentions, only to find by noon that the heat had thickened into something almost solid. We adapted, as one must. Dawn became our walking time, setting off while the valley still held its coolness, the olive leaves silver-grey in early light. We explored the immediate hills around Calasparra proper, finding paths that wound through carob trees and past abandoned cortijos where swallows nested in broken rafters. By ten, we'd be back, glistening and triumphant, ready for the pool and the long, slow afternoon.

One morning we drove down to the coast near Aguilas, determined to tackle the cliff-top paths Miguel had enthused about. The Mediterranean glittered below like a promise kept, and for two glorious hours we strode along, feeling properly adventurous. Then the wind shifted, bringing a humidity that wrapped around us like a wet blanket, and we retreated to a beach cafe for fried calamari and cold beer, watching fishing boats bob in the heat haze. I remember thinking, as I peeled my damp shirt from my chest, that perhaps I was not the rugged coastal hiker I had imagined myself to be.

Back at the farmhouse, evenings brought their own rhythm. We'd shower away the day's salt and dust, then sit on the terrace as the valley cooled and the swallows gave way to bats. The heat that had defeated us by day became something almost companionable by night, a lingering warmth in the stone walls, in the earth itself. I found myself walking barefoot on the terracotta, feeling the day's stored sunshine release slowly through my soles.

On our final morning, we rose before five to catch the earliest cool, stumbling up the hill behind the property with head torches and sleepy determination. From the ridge, we watched the sun rise over the Sierra del Molino, turning the olive groves from grey to gold, and I understood something I hadn't before. The walking mattered, certainly, but so did the surrender - the willingness to abandon the planned route when the heat demanded it, to float instead of stride, to let the weather shape the day rather than fight it. I stood there in borrowed socks, my original pairs having been purchased at a petrol station two days prior, and felt briefly wise.

We drove back to Alicante with the air conditioning blasting and my three pairs of boots stacked in the boot, largely unworn. The socks, at least, had seen proper use.