Moto to Morocco: The map & the roundabout
Moto Camille is back with the second part of his reflections from the road during his Moto To Morocco madness. He likes paper maps, he doesn't like roundabouts
I had a photography assignment at the Tour de France to follow a directeur sportif of a well known team. First thing in he morning, I found him in his standard hotel room. He was stooped over his double bed looking at the day's race route on paper maps. Maps laid out on the double bed? Was this another fetish of a cycle sport D.S.?
I asked Freddy (not his real name) what he was up to. After all, he worked for a team whose headline sponsor was a very well known Sat-Nav brand. Freddy went on to explain to me that the old school paper maps showed him things that the Sat-Nav did not. He could plan and plot a race to greater effect using the information on the paper. Like a fool, I asked if he minded if I used the images. Freddy then realised, that his sponsor would not like the images in the press. The images, much to my frustration, have never been seen. This brand was very controlling of it’s image. It didn’t even let the team use the word ‘lost ' as it had bad associations.
Now, just a few years later people will pay good money to get ‘lost’ if it’s packaged as an adventure.
Like Freddy, I have real faith in paper maps and maybe have more of a fetish with them than he does….nothing to do with laying them on the bed. It’s about details, it’s about looking at the map and having a flight of fantasy, the paper map being a tangible real thing. Maps are , like a book, more than the sum of it’s parts. You can draw on it, make notes, mark, rip or burn it. It’s a beautiful object. A map gives fire to the imagination, unlike Google’a’like maps which fuels the curiosity (or kills it) or the Sat-Nav which makes you so dull you think only of wheel revolutions and energy consumption. The paper map is simple and wonderful.
Once I found out the Morocco road trip was happening, the first thing I did was get a paper map and spend a few hours in a bar looking at it.
I live in the French Pyrenees, I use paper maps all the time. I find the small backroads and underused tracks, the ‘Lost Highways’ away from the Péage and the R.N. (Route National). In France, the Péage, the mega highway triple lane routes to take you across country at 130 KLM/H, replaced the R.N. Parallel to all Péage there is the R.N option, the alternative route.
It’s the route less traveled and as ‘Robert Pirsig’ would tell you in ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', it is the only way. However there is a problem… the roundabout.
I hate roundabouts. I’m a British immigrant to France and I have historical issues with the roundabout. They are everywhere in Britain. The first roundabout was in a ‘New Town' called Letchworth Garden City and if ever there was a reason too flee the UK, the Garden City is high on the list. The roundabout spread from the UK, filling Europe, usurping the dreaded French 'Priorité a droits’ (give way to the right) like a nasty rash.
Like nasty rashes, I like to avoid them.
I spend a good deal of time looking for a good ride without the roundabout, and this road trip to Morocco looked like the perfect ‘clear' route option. Morocco is like a paper map, it’s from another age. There are not so many roundabouts. But it’s changing.
The chicken pox rash of the roundabouts is coming.
You can drive from the Pyrenees to Marrakech on Peage all the way…dull as f*ck, but you can do it. In fact, I think one can travel the world on dual carriageway … but why would you?
My trip took me on the B roads through Spain. There are less roads and roundabouts in Spain than France and nothing is direct and there are bad road direction signs. I was wondering if this was a hangover from Franco? A totalitarian state not being keen on movement of the people. However, Spain was great and once I went over the sea to the next continent, things changed.
As I left Tangier, a large flock of black birds flew beside me for a good 10 seconds… this was the start of the experience. Out in the 'backcountry' there are no roundabouts.
There are roads that are marked on the map that are washed away, some just used by locals. There are very few, almost no road signs and according to one hotel concierge, the roads that I’ve ridden on and that are marked on the map, he insists don't exist.
There are many road blocks, police asking for papers, from the locals that is - we tourists get carte blanche, we are waived on, the smooth route is for us foreigners, to help ease the money from our pockets and into the economy. The police are their roundabouts I guess.
I like to use paper maps... and Morocco is like a paper map. It too is tactile and from another age.
Not everything is laid out for you... it’s there but you have to look, and if you look... Morocco is amazing.
