Damn Rebel I've been car-jacked in Barcelona, lost in the Alps and harassed by fake police in Cuba. Yet, I continue to remind myself that adventure was, after all, what I set off in search of.

BANG! I was in the fast lane of a Barcelona highway when I heard it. BANG! I thought the car was going to explode.

After living on the Shetland Islands (an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean) for 13 years I had decided that I wanted to radically change my life; to have adventures, to write and to travel. I had left everything. I had sold my house, given away my possessions and loaded what I wanted to keep into my VW. I was driving to southern Spain.

BANG! The noise came from the back of my car. A sleek black Audi with flashing orange hazard-lights was racing alongside me. A man in a ski jacket was hanging out of the passenger window, pointing wildly at the back of my car. Was I going to explode? Was it a blow-out? I had to get off the road. I veered across fast, dense lanes of traffic to the hard shoulder. Traffic hooted. I hoped for the best.

The black car followed me and the pointing man jumped out. He was tall and had tightly-cropped black hair.

‘Fuego! Fuego! (Fire! Fire!) he yelled.

He pulled me towards the back of my car. I couldn’t see any fire.

‘Fuego!’ he shouted once more. Then he and the black car were off.

‘Thank you’ I shouted (meekly) after him.

I shook with shock. Traffic shook my car.

My phone was in a bag on the passenger seat with other precious things, like my camera, bank cards and passport. But, the door was open and the bag had gone. In a crazed panic I thought: The door must have flown open as I careered across the motorway. The bag must have spewed its contents onto the tarmac. I was fizzing with adrenalin.

Fortunately, I had two phones and one was still in the car. I called the Spanish police and only then, as I told my story, did I understand what had happened as the tall, pointing man had distracted me. Through calm tears I said, ‘I think they’ve stolen my things’.

Then a car slowed down ahead of me. Great, someone was stopping to help. But they didn’t stop. They threw some things from the window and hurtled off. It was the black car.

Was that my bag lying on the hard shoulder? The man and his unseen accomplice had kept my camera and most of my cards, but had thrown back some clothes, my passport, one bank card, a map of Spain and a bizarre memento of our encounter, something of theirs: a zip-up Adidas top that smelt of aftershave and sweat.

The police knew the scam. Throw a stone at a car, BANG! You think you’re going to explode, you stop and are robbed. But, they had never heard of a return mercy trip.