Life is one big rambla...

Went on a very interesting walk yesterday, not least because we got somewhat lost! It began well: we walked through the beautiful La Alcarria valley and along the rambla to El Marchal. From there, we set off down another rambla towards Jauro. At some point, we should have turned left towards La Alameda. Only problem was we thought we had to go via Jauro and missed the Alameda turning.

We walked in the wrong direction, first for about 30 mins along the big stony rambla to the west of Jauro. Eventually, under the impression we had gone past Jauro, we walked all the way back and took the road into the village (about 45 mins more walking).

When we eventually got there, we realised we had been nearly there at the point when we turned back. Even worse, after a friendly local drew us a map, we realised we shouldn't have come to Jauro at all, and had to walk almost all the way back to El Marchal to find the Alameda turning!

It was almost dark by the time we reached La Alameda, and we were more than a little relieved when a friendly driver gave us a lift the last couple of miles home.

The whole exercise took five hours (instead of three and a half). It afforded plenty of time to muse on its possible significance - and how life itself can be full of mistakes, false starts, confusion, realising things in hindsight and then, if you're lucky, finally getting back on track (perhaps with a little help from your friends) and reaching your destination.

As it says in my current reading, Blast Radius by RL McKinney: "There's only two fixed points on [life's] map. You can't go back to the first and you sure as hell can't avoid the last, but everything in between is up for grabs." The hero of the book thinks his life is a "series of wrong turns, leading to other wrong turns and then to those places you can't get back from". I only started reading it today, and it resonated.

How can you avoid making those wrong turns - or can you at least make the most of them? I must say, I quite enjoyed getting lost - it afforded us a panoramic view right down the rambla which we wouldn't have seen otherwise - and now I've looked it up on Google Earth I feel more orientated than I ever did before! And how sweet it was, to finally arrive at La Alameda knowing that we had persevered and won!

My companion might disagree. For him, the best bit might have been getting the lift home. I have to admit we were knackered by then, to the extent that our friendly driver's one-hand/no-hands driving as he flew down the lane talking non-stop on his mobile phone didn't bother me at all!

A song from from Tenor Saw today: