Why is と used here?


The sentence in question: しばらく行くと、道路が急カーブになる所で、がけの下に川が見えてきた。

For full context: <https://www.satorireader.com/articles/sanzu-no-kawa-
episode-1-edition-m?sentenceID=SrOvSLFfSOyCJFzmEmFt>

My attempt at translation: "When I drive a little while, in a place where the
road becomes a steep curve, the river beneath the cliffs comes into sight."

In my textbook, I learnt that when と is used in a conditional phrase, what
follows after is an "inevitable consequence/something that MUST happen after
the condition in the phrase has been met". This does indeed somehow fit the
context, because when I continue driving along the road, I will inevitably
encounter all the places this road leads to. However, I still find that using
a conditional phrase at all sounds odd here.

しばらく confers a temporal semantics, and it also implies that what is described
afterwards also happens afterwards. So I'd rather expect something along the
lines of "て-form + から" or at least a "時" to fit into the temporal context. Why
is と used instead?

