So near and yet SO far...

Driving around, trying to listen to my intuition in a foreign country, in an unfamiliar car, on the wrong side of the road, without a comprehensive map and no command of the language raised a few concerns when we had been searching the same stretch of road for what seemed like a while.

Something inside told me that we were closer than we thought, and we must have passed the same group of men working on the short stretch of road 3 times in one direction, and twice travelling in the other.  They had no idea where we were bound, what we were looking for, and did not speak English.

We attempted to approach from the highway from either direction, to no avail.  The directions didn’t speak to us, and we were left with little more than our instincts, which by this time, were pretty drained.



Our spirits were lifted having identified the right junction, the right road but which direction.  My handwritten notes, enthusiastically scribbled when it all seemed so straightforward as I was taken through them, over the phone, whilst still in the safe surroundings of the UK, no longer seemed worth the scrap of paper on which they were scrawled, the map seemed laughable and a comfortable welcome a long way off yet. 

We had no alternative but to continue.  Two heads better than one, four eyes better than two, and we had at least tuned in to a half decent radio station which was providing familiar tunes when they were most needed.

Turning back yet again, trying to bring fresh eyes to the now frustratingly recognisable scenery, and crossing the river whose name we will never forget, I became aware of a sign.  A small, handwritten sign, at about knee height, with the all important initials of the resort we were so desperate to discover...  We had driven so close to this over an hour ago, but had turned around believing ourselves to have made a wrong turn.