Co-incidences or, something else?

After a terrible 48 hours when it felt that I could not take a trick and that the universe was against me, everything changed in the space of a day. I was travelling to Villa Ambra, which I had thought was in/near Acquaviva, but which I only realised that morning, was 15kms west of there. I walked out onto the platform to wait for the train, and as I walked along, saw another bloke with a back-pack and we made eye-contact as I went past, and then I returned and sat next to him and we started talking. He was an Alaskan, on holiday for 5 weeks, and was fascinated by my project, and the connection to St Francis, as he was a lapsed Catholic raised by the Franciscans. The strange thing was that only that morning I had moved some of my cards from my bum bag to my pants pocket, and within a ½ hour I was handing one out. He was also turning 60 this year and at a transition point and we talked for half an hour before my station. As we were parting, he made the comment that we were meant to meet, and I had the same feeling about it.  BTW if you are reading this, pls email me.
Then when I left the station to get a taxi, I met Stefano, whose English was more limited than my Italian, but we had a fine conversation for 20 minutes or so, and it really gave me the confidence just to speak “off the cuff” without thinking first. While we were driving I was thinking, "How did I make this mistake, and book a place way out here?"  
When we reached the hotel Stefano followed me in with a map he’d had in his boot which showed a walking path that would avoid the most dangerous sections of the road to Montepulciano. Then as we were talking, Catia (the owner’s sister) offered out of the blue to drive me there in the morning, if I wished. Two cases of the kindness of strangers, that I have often read about in reference to the Camino in Spain, but which I had never before experienced.

To put the icing on the cake, when I went out for a walk, what pattern is all over the paths? The scallop shell, the symbol of the pilgrimage to Santiago. All of a sudden it hit me – all my troubles had been for the purpose of bringing me here today and giving me these very human experiences. Even my 'mistake' in the booking, now seemed not to have been a mistake but rather part of an 'intended' detour.  And, if I had not been ‘forced’ to change my plans, I would not have been here.

No doubt some of you will say that it’s just co-incidence, but I choose to believe that there’s more to it than that, and that belief strengthened me in my resolve, and transformed my formerly ‘negative’ experiences into something more.
This was affirmed again the next morning when I left in fog, to walk about 1km down the road to where the sentiero left the road. I had only gone a few hundred metres when a young Italian guy pulled up to see if I needed a lift, and that I was ok! Yet another demonstration of human kindness – I was sailing along with a spring in my step after that!