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It’s early morning in Málaga. I’m sitting in a small café not far from Macarena’s sister’s home, still carrying the residue of jet lag in my bones. I order a tortilla—one of my favourite Spanish dishes—and ask for it without bread.

“In Spain, it’s normal to eat it with bread,” the waiter says, very seriously.

Politeness wins over preference. “Alright then,” I reply, “with integral bread.”

But the word lingers in my mind: Normal. What does that even mean? Do we all agree on it? Or do we quietly fill it with our own private definitions?

After what happened on my very first day here, I’m not so sure anymore.

When my plate arrives, it’s not the thick, potato-rich tortilla I imagined, but a plain omelette. Another small reminder—whether on the road or on the path of life—things rarely arrive exactly as we expect. And Málaga had already shown me that lesson in a far more dramatic way.

The Taxi That Took My Life With It

Thanks to Macarena—a friend of my boyfriend—I had a place to stay for two days with her sister. I was so grateful for her generous gesture.

In August, Málaga can feel like a city reserved for the wealthy. I’m not rich in my pocket, but I am rich in my heart.

Any ways, her family wouldn’t be home until four in the afternoon, so I stored my luggage in a shop and kept walking. By the time the clock reached 4:00 p.m., the thought of taking a bus and walking with two heavy backpacks felt impossible. I hailed a taxi.

The driver’s face was worn and unreadable—a man enduring the city’s relentless summer heat.

“Ten euros,” he said after me showing him the address.

I got in and noticed the taximeter running. “But it’s ten euros, right?”

“The taximeter will decide,” he replied.

Too tired to argue, I told him we needed to pick up my luggage nearby. At a red light, I jumped out—thinking I could save some money while he had to wait for the green. I left my little bag with all my money, passport, mobile in the backseat of the car.

Thinking it would be safe—because it’s a taxi.

I went to the luggage shop, collected my two big backpacks, and walked back to the taxi. I placed them through the right back door.

As I walked around to the other side to get in, he drove forward. At first, I thought he was just pulling up or making space so I could get in safely and his car wouldn’t get hit by passing cars. Then he sped up. Faster. He wasn’t stopping, I realised.

My stomach dropped.

I started screaming and running after the car, totally desperate, but I could see he was going too fast. I wouldn’t reach him.

The Earthly Angel

I kept crying out loudly, “My everything is gone!” But no one reacted. People only watched.

Bursting into a small restaurant run by North African owners, I gasped, “Does anyone speak English?”

“I do,” said a young man from inside, listening calmly. “I will help you to get your things back. I promise.”

He walked me back to the taxi stand. In front of a shopping mall, by pure chance, a police car passed. He flagged it down and explained everything between my sobs.

The police called their central office and checked with other taxi drivers, making them contact the taxi drivers’ central dispatch. I asked if we could check the cameras nearby, but they told me it wasn’t possible—it would fall under international police procedure, and at the stage we were in, we couldn’t do that.

Reading their faces, I couldn’t see much hope. They shook their heads, watching my desperate behaviour. After a while, I noticed the expression of my earthly angel shifting from certainty to concern, but he kept reassuring me.

“Breathe, relax. All will be fine,” he said.

Time becomes strange in moments like this. Maybe 30 minutes passed, maybe 45—before one of the officers waved. The taxi had returned.

In a second, my desperation turned to full rage. I marched across the road to the driver, screaming at him—demanding how he could do such a thing. I don’t know how much he understood of my words, but my body was speaking loudly enough.

The men were all talking in Spanish while my earthly angel stepped in every so often to calm me, to keep me from exploding. If I’d had a machete, I might have used it. It had been years since I’d felt such raw rage.

The driver’s explanation was that he hadn’t noticed I wasn’t in the car. How can that happen? How can a taxi driver not notice if the passenger is inside or not?

What the real truth was, I’ll never know. Only he knows whether he truly didn’t notice—or if he thought he could get away with driving off.

In my eyes, he was a thief.

And if he wasn’t, then at the very least, he was not present at all in his own life.

Trust, Normal, and Earthly Angels

And what was apparently normal to the taxi driver—not even looking in his mirror to see if the passenger was in or not—was, for sure, not normal in my head. But one thing is certain: we are all in the same boat—the boat of life—each of us going through our own unique experiences.

While I am on this journey, I hold daily intentions close and remember the sacredness in every experience, no matter how my human mind labels it. Yes, this one was far from pleasant, and it showed me just how difficult it can be to maintain trust in human exchanges like this. But it also reminded me why holding on to that intention of trust is so essential—because without it, what kind of life would I be living?

Even in the middle of rage and despair, help arrived at the exact moment I needed it. And for me, that is a reminder of the quiet goodness woven into life—a goodness that often arrives through the presence of earthly angels.

I have encountered a few of them during my soon 53 years of life, and I guess, in some moments, I have been one myself for others.

Have you ever met an earthly angel—or perhaps been one for someone else?

I would love to hear your experiences. Share them in the comments below. 🌿

By the way, if you’d like to spend a week in October practicing intention-setting and exploring your inner landscape at your own rhythm—finding that quiet space within you that opens in both movement and silence—join me in Morocco for my upcoming retreat:

Move with Intention – A Desert Retreat

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