The car came to a halt in a wide turning circle at the top of a steep climb, and when the dust settled it revealed a set of tall black gates, at the top of which it read Santuario in spidery iron script. Beyond the gates lay an unwelcome avenue of spiky plants and bushes bearing inch-long needles.

‘This looks inviting,’ I said, as a sicky wash of unease crashed over me.

‘Adios, señorita,’ Arturo laughed, speeding off down the hill. I stared through the gates. It reminded me of the sight greeting the Little Mermaid when she got to the Sea Witch’s lair in the book Dad read me at bedtime. It was always the bit where I’d pull the covers tight so the Witch couldn’t get me. There was a button on the gate post. I pressed it and there was a click.

‘Uh, I’m looking for Tenoch Espinoza?’ I said, my head itching like a bitch and my throat drier than the sand beneath my shoes. No answer. ‘Uh, Dannielle me envoi? Bobby Fairly? Yo soy Hilary Sharp?’

Still no answer, despite my valiant attempt at minimal Spanish. I pressed the button again. Again, no answer. I dropped my leaden rucksack to the dirt and kicked the gate repeatedly until one of my trainers flew off.

‘FUCK’S SAKE!’ I glared up at the endless blue sky. My sweat had formed patches and I could smell definite crevice rancidity. This was the proverbial It: the deadest of dead ends. My ire had woken up all the thought owls; as welcome as unsolicited U2 albums and almost as impossible to get rid of: I was tired as fuck, hungry, dehydrated and boiling hot.

‘SOMEBODY HELP ME! IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S NOT FUCKING FAIR!’

But it was fair, wasn’t it? I’d more than asked for a bit of payback and here it was. I couldn’t walk all the way back down the track in a blistering hot, Mad Max-esque wilderness to the coast road – I’d surely die of thirst en route. This was it. This was the end. In a few months’ time, some backpacker would stumble across my skeletal cadaver complete with pile of fake extensions on the ground behind me. They’d find Richard E. Grunt in my backpack and my fake passport. They’d put two and two together and realise it was me. Probably release a fucking book about it and become a bestseller.

And as I’m sitting there, panicking, losing the will to live and identifying which of the hook-beaked fuckers circling above was going to peck the flesh from my ribcage, the panel on the post behind me fizzed and clicked.

A deep, gravelly voice barked ‘Quién está ahí?’

I scrabbled to my feet. ‘Yeah, it’s Hilary? Hilary Sharp?’

‘Tu nombre real?’

‘Hilary Sharp? Hilary? S.H.A.R.P? Hilary Fucking SHARP?’