Dear All,

Welcome once again to a small update and snippet of the last week or so.  We are writing from Sunny Malaga having spent a well deserved rest day on the beach.  But all is not as plain sailing as it may appear.  We are also using this internet cafe to locate yet another bike shop, in the hope we can patch up El Toro for one big final push (we hope to be on African soil within 48 hours) to the finish. 

 As our keenest followers will have noticed, it has been a bit longer than expected since our last blog.  This is due to the fact that we took the executive decision to push on while we could and try to eek out some down time once we have completed the journey.  As such a 6 day cycling week became an 8 day cycling week and it is fair to say that we are now feeling the effects (both physically and mentally). 

The last 8 days have been noticably difficult and we have faced our biggest problems yet.  The problems with the inner tubes (mentioned in our last blog) continued to manifest themselves and we battled the stifling heat, failing light and navigational problems to limp into our evening destinations on more than one occasion. 

 In addition, our list of broken and damaged kit continues to mount with the loss of two of the most psychologically important bits of kit.  The first casualty was the ipod which was stolen from under our noses while we slept in Altea. It was less than a foot from my head and partially covered by our belongings but it seems where there´s a will there´s a way and some opportunistic bastard is now the proud owner of lots of natalie imbruglia songs and some dodgy techno beats.  This resulted in the first real anger of the trip. The frustrations of the inners and the flat tyres were annoying but always expected to be par for the course.  But theft is something that someone has chosen to do and that is what hacks us off the most.  Next to go was our speedometer and onboard computer (essential for telling us how far we have travelled, how far to go and what kind of speeds we had been pushing out).  This slipped from its holster in relatively fast moving traffic, we slammed on the brakes and turned round only to see the display being pounded by car after car into the scorching tarmac.  We finally managed to pìck it up to discover that it was well and truly lost. Crushing!

However, the biggest disappointment of the whole trip came yesterday.  We were well on course to absolutely dominate a truly massive 160km day when disaster struck.   We pulled over to check out a few rattles that had accumulated throughout the morning session, to find that we had been dealt the worst hand posible.  The chain was damaged, the gear cable (but most importantly the gear cable connectors) were damaged and we had sheared a spoke on the rear wheel (meaning the rear sprocket would have to be removed).  The first two were technically fixable but the damage to the spoke was irrepairable with the tools at hand and requires a bike shop - the closest one that could help was 50km away.  It was therefore with MASSIVE REGRET that we boarded a bus to take us and the wounded toro to Malaga. As we sat on the bus we were noticably dejected and the sense of defeat crept over both of us (proud to the end!).  We knew that we had no other real option but were heartbroken to know that on a journey of nearly 2,800km we were stopped in our tracks by something out of our control for a measly 50km (we have done bigger sessions than that before breakfast on good days).  Every kilometer travelled on the bus brought with it a realisation that it was a kilometer not travelled on the bike and that it was ground that we could never make up (or go back and cycle). Defeat tasted bitter in both of our mouths. 

On reflection, we are still enourmously proud of what we have achieved to date and are aware that we must pick ourselves up and finish the trip off with a big effort.  We have battled like troopers over the last week and know that we had more to give and could have got the job done if only given the chance.  It is just a shame that such a small distance has left us feeling so dejected but such is life!

 On a lighter note, one of the most comedy moments of the trip so far has to have been turning up at a campsite near Cartagena (after our Couch Surfer bailed on us that afternoon) having freewheeled 10km down some of the steepest coastal cliffs we had yet seen to be told that we could not stay there without showing our naturist cards. Or without proving we were "boyfriend and boyfriend". (Who would have thought that further proof was needed given our attire, our mode of transport and the size of our tent? Suffice it to say that there followed another night´s sleeping rough in the wilderness. Proud to the end, remember?

As is customary here are our highs and lows:

Highs

• Beating central Spain and hitting the coast
• The med
• The beach in Malaga and beers with friends
• Puncture free days
• Good food (platos combinados anyone?)
• Some spectacular views
• Breaking new ground in the travel game genre
• Petrol station discos (and sun frazzled brains!)
• Comedy lycra tan lines

Lows

• Thieving bastards
• Temperamental kit
•  The effects of pretty bad dehydration (dizziness, shivering in the midday sun, feeling sick)
• Sweat gushing from everywhere
• Smelly kit = swarms of flies. Everywhere.
• Being beaten by the bloody bike
• Big hills
• The hard shoulder.

Ttfn mgf,

Joe & Andy

P.S. As ever we´d love to hear from you.x