I'd made a few friends when I met Rocío, and was more extraverted than before. We had a couple of drinks in a little village, sat outside in the evening air and talked about life in our different worlds. As long as I'd been handling my own life on my terms, I'd always wondered how others had done the same, and Rocío'd done a nice job with hers.

I remember she'd wanted to get out on the road in her own little bus, exploring and taking life as it came. As it was at that moment, she'd made do with trundling up the pot-holed hill in mine, as we headed to her gorgeous home in the forest, overlooking a compact, friendly and rustic-as-you-like community of self-built houses, nested, seemingly at random, between the lush canopies of intermingling forest clumps.

We cooked vegetables, drank home-made juice and shared stories into the morning, accompanied by a beautiful, elderly dog, whose name I forget; I just remember it meant something like "Don't chew that" or "No Biting". He was a stinky old chap and I loved him immediately.

Rocío had told me that, at night, a family of wild pigs would often come into the garden to sniff out food and the dog liked to go out and bark at them. As she was telling me about it, he looked up with an embarrassed expression that melted my heart and I loved him even more.

As the morning took our conversation down to an airy, sparse and exhausted tone, long after the songs and the tarot readings and musical show-and-tell, I retired to my quiet, still and welcoming abode, parked on the edge of a steep drop, poured myself one last cup of tea, and flumped into my favorite bed in the whole world, which I had built from an old book shelf and a door. It swallowed me up hungrily and I sank down the layers until I felt like I was below sea level. A better, more satisfying sleep was hard to come by.

I spent the next day just tinkering with various inventions and admiring the village in the forest on the mountain, wondering how I'd been so lucky as to end up there, or rather, if it had been there all this time, why I hadn't discovered it until now. As I tinkered, adding LEDs to this and checking wires on that, I was greeted by several of the locals, including a shy-but-curious creature, who didn't know whether to approach for a cuddle or run away, and so kind of did both. He watched for a minute, as I slid my seat forward to pull cables from the battery bay, shoveling biscuits into my face as I worked, until I became boring and his mind turned to other adventures, including, apparently, sniffing his own bum.

After my time on the mountain, Rocío and I had agreed to stay in touch - something I had looked forward to. But, for reasons I never discovered, that was the last I heard from her and I never did see that old dog again. Still, the memories are worth the effort and I'll remember the short encounter with a warm glow.

Some months later, I returned to the area for a final glimpse at that view, stayed another night on the mountain, and again, slept like a baby - well, like the hour or so between crying and pooping. The next day, I headed back down the winding roads to see something new, and ran into a family of wild pigs...

I still miss that view.

The old fella.

The nervous bum sniffer.

The view.