I have never been so relieved to see a swimming pool in my life, and that includes the time I fell into the lake at Centre Parcs as a teenager. The journey to our holiday let in Buenavista, Tenerife had started innocently enough: a perfectly ordinary flight from Gatwick, a rental car that smelled faintly of pineapple air freshener and regret, and then the decision that would haunt me for the next ninety minutes. I had insisted on taking the scenic route.

My other half, who had sensibly wanted to stick to the main road, sat in the passenger seat with that particular expression of British restraint that says "I will not say I told you so, but my silence is deafening." The sat nav had other ideas, or perhaps I had other ideas and the sat nav was simply an accomplice. Either way, we wound up on a track that grew narrower with every bend, flanked by banana plantations that loomed like green sentinels in the afternoon light. The pineapple smell intensified. I think the car was mocking me.

When we finally emerged, dusty and slightly hysterical, onto a proper road near Buenavista del Norte, we had accidentally discovered something rather wonderful. A tiny mirador, barely marked, with views of the Teno mountains that made me forget entirely about my navigational shame. The Atlantic glittered below, and some local lads were fishing from rocks that looked impossibly precarious. We stayed twenty minutes, eating emergency biscuits from my hand luggage and watching the light change. It was not in any guidebook I had brought. It was better for that.

The property itself, when we eventually found it, sat tucked away with that particular Canarian confidence that does not need to shout for attention. Whitewashed walls, a terrace that caught the afternoon sun, and a pool that I mentioned earlier and still feel quite emotional about. But what struck me most was how the surrounding lanes invited aimlessness. The next morning, abandoning any pretence of an itinerary, we set off on foot with no particular destination.

We found a bakery where no one spoke English and my GCSE Spanish died an honourable death. Through pointing and enthusiastic smiling, we acquired bread that was still warm and some local cheese that smelled strongly of proper farming. The woman behind the counter seemed amused by our efforts, or perhaps by my pronunciation, which apparently made "thank you" sound like something entirely more agricultural.

Wandering further, we stumbled upon a path that led down toward the coast, not the main tourist beaches but a shingle cove where an elderly gentleman was harvesting something from the rocks with a small hammer. He showed us, with patient gestures, how to find the edible bits of something I still cannot name. We did not try to replicate his work. Some holiday experiences are best left as observation.

By late afternoon, thoroughly lost and thoroughly content, we discovered a tiny bar attached to someone's house, marked only by a handwritten sign. The owner, who introduced himself as Paco though I suspect this was tourist-friendly simplification, produced wine from his own vines and goat stew that my other half still mentions in reverential tones. We had walked perhaps three miles from our base, though in our meandering it felt like more, and found something no review could have prepared us for.

That evening, back on our terrace with the last of Paco's wine, I admitted that my scenic route disaster had perhaps been the making of the trip. My other half raised an eyebrow but conceded that accidental discovery beat efficient arrival. The Teno Rural Park surrounded us with its ancient, volcanic presence, and somewhere out there were surely more wrong turns waiting to become right ones.

The hidden joy of Buenavista, I realised, was that it rewarded the unprepared. Every planned excursion we took afterward, to the proper attractions with proper signage, was perfectly pleasant. None matched the biscuit-eating mirador, the unnamed cheese, or Paco's goat stew. Getting lost in Tenerife's northwest corner taught me something I keep forgetting and keep needing to relearn: the best parts of a holiday rarely come from following the recommended route. Sometimes you need the narrow track, the rising panic, and the banana plantations to find what actually matters. I still maintain the pineapple air freshener was unnecessary commentary.