The Route Begins Where the Map Ends

I pinned the chart to a crate in Marrakesh before sunrise, its brass corners warm from yesterday's heat. The route held six red dashes, and each one asked the same question: what had been left out?

Read the ground, not the legend

By dusk, the paper had taken on the day's dust. We marked the pass by its wind, the ruined wall by its shadow, and the silent mile by the birds that refused to cross. Good field notes do not promise certainty; they make room for the next discovery.

The map was never the destination. It was a record of where we had been, and a warning about what waited ahead.