I made an early start on Day Four in order to get a headstart on my competitor. It was very tough going because the wind was now blowing directly at me, and strongly too, but I plugged away like any good tortoise would. But then at about eleven o'clock, with 40 kilometres under my belt, I saw a shining white hare appear in my mirror. Andreas was back.

We greeted each other and spoke for a few moments, and once again it seemed I must have overtaken him late the evening before after he had made camp. He was again looking fresh-faced and healthy, whilst I was no doubt looking and feeling quite the opposite. I decided he probably wasn't really human. In the movie he'll be played by the bad robot man from Terminator Two. He reminded me of him quite a lot. Once again I considered drafting behind my opponent. I couldn't remember anything in the parable about the tortoise taking advantage of the hare's slipstream, but I also couldn't see any reason why he shouldn't. But no, I couldn't do it. It wouldn't be right. It would be cheating.

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Andreas had suggested that we take turns riding at the front so that we could both be sure to get to the border on time. There was no logical reason for me to refuse such a request, certainly not on the grounds of fictional certificates anyway, and so I agreed. I considered the fact that he had been the one to suggest the idea very much a moral victory.

The headwind was really fierce and so we swapped the leader every kilometre. I didn't want to slow Andreas down too much and so I worked hard to try and keep my speed the same as his when it was my turn to do the work. Each kilometre at the front was an agonising and long-lasting period of effort battling into the wind, each kilometre at the back a brief respite that seemed to last mere seconds. And so the afternoon went on in this fashion across a seemingly endless sea of desert.

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After about 40 kilometres of this we came across a cafe out in the middle of nowhere and stumbled inside. Unbelievably I found myself buying more water, the amount that I was drinking in the heat, which was surely in the high 30's, was incredible. Andreas wanted to stay and have a meal and a long rest. I saw my chance to get ahead. The tortoise and the hare had been friends for too long, now I would seize the initiative while the hare gorged himself. So I declared that I wanted to go on alone, wished my companion well, and left him to his soup.

Alone, it was really tough going. The wind was so powerful, so unforgiving, an invisible hand forcing me back. I had been pushing my body too hard for too long, I was weak, I couldn't turn the pedals. But I was determined to succeed in the Desert-Dash Challenge, I had to. And I was also determined to beat Andreas to the border, surely I could. But I was just so exhausted. After just a few kilometres I took a quick break to eat a snack to get my strength up. I only stopped for a second, but when I looked around, there was Robocop coming over the horizon towards me. "Andreas!" I said, "I stopped to wait for you! Lets go on togther."

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We did another 20 kilometres to get through the 100 mark for the day. Neither of us knew exactly how far it was to the border, but with more than 450 kilometres completed in four days, the Desert-Dash Challenge was surely in the bag. We set up camp in the desert near to each other but by this time I was really starting to feel quite terrible. Flies were buzzing around me, irritating me the whole time. Andreas was merrily pitching up a short distance away.

"Are the flies even bothering you?" I asked him.

"No" he replied cheerfully.

"I didn't think so." I knew he wasn't human.

I wanted to camp on the other side of a dune as it was a better spot, but it meant doing several trips carrying my bags and bike which tired me even further. After dropping a couple of bags off I climbed the dune again and saw Andreas had taken his shirt off and was reaching down for his bicycle shorts. I looked away just in time, waited a couple of minutes and then squinted back in his direction through my fingers. The man was standing butt naked next to his tent. Seriously dude, I did not need that.

As I lay down in my tent I felt very sick. My stomach lurched. I think the naked Austrian man had been the tipping point. I had to get out of my tent very quickly, crawled a few metres, and threw up. Yuck. You know how sometimes after you vomit you feel much better? Like it cleanses your system or something? Yeah, that didn't happen. I felt worse. I puked some more. And some more. Soon I had nothing left in my stomach to throw up, but I kept retching anyway. This was really not good. I couldn't get back in my tent, I just lay down on the sand, forgetting the scorpion I had seen that morning and not having the strength to care if there was one there or not. The night air was cooling. I stared up at the stars, my head swimming, and the night passed like this. Every so often my stomach muscles would convulse and force me to retch and vomit nothing. I tried drinking water but this was immediately returned to the sand. My body ached and cramped all over. I had nothing left in my system and my body would not accept water, and I was in the middle of a desert. This was potentially a really very serious situation. If I still could not drink water in the morning there was certainly no way I was going to be cycling anywhere. I would have to catch a lift to the the nearest town at least. But I remembered reading that the crazy ex-President had closed all the hospitals outside of the capital. I would probably have to go all the way to Uzbekistan to find one. And of course with the visa expired there would be no way to come back and cycle the kilometres I had missed. This was serious. This was really f*cking serious. This could be the end of the whole trip.