I barely slept but by daybreak I was managing to hold down some water at least. I decided I was really going to need the help of Andreas if I was going to make it to the border before 6pm when my visa would expire. I had to ask him if I could cycle behind him out of the wind the whole way and if he could go just a little slower than his usual pace, well, maybe I could make it. Yep, this tortoise was going to make it alright, clinging on to the hare's tail for dear life all the way to the finish line. It took all my strength to stand up. His tent was away from mine, over the top of that dune. It was such an extraordinary effort to walk up that dune. I finally staggered up to the top and looked down at his tent. And saw nothing but sand. He had gone without me. Botox.

How could sand be so uncomfortable? I had tossed and turned all night, never feeling one bit relaxed. The vomiting and the headache and the dehydration and exhaustion and all that were factors of course, but even the sand itself, it was uncomfortable. I was back lying on the sand again now. The sun had come up. I couldn't find the energy to get up again. I was just going to lie there until the sun rose high in the sky and finished me off. There was nothing else for it. Then I heard a voice calling to me and looked up through hazy eyes to see a figure decked all in white appearing over the dune. "Chris, I heard you being sick, you are very weak. I think you should cycle behind me the whole way today okay. And don't worry, we make it together." I had just been dreaming before, he hadn't left at all. My Austrian robotic bunny was still with me, and he was going to save me. An angel of a man really.

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The wind seemed even stronger than the day before but Andreas cycled into it with impressive vigour, which was annoying, because I couldn't keep up with his pace even hiding behind him out of the wind. But I did my best, I had no choice, as I concentrated on staring at his back wheel and trying to stay as close to it as I could. We had to stop every few kilometres. I was struggling to stomach any food as I didn't have anything other than dry food, bread and biscuits, which was so unappetising. I knew I had to eat something so I soaked water in bread but I could still not manage more than a few bites. Whenever Andreas went too fast for me I shouted "SLOW!" to him. Sometimes he heard me and sometimes he didn't because of the wind and then he would cycle off without me and would have to wait for me to catch up. I quite liked it when this happened actually because cycling very slowly at my own six kilometres an hour was less painful than cycling at his speed which was more than double that. I urged him to cycle a bit slower so I could keep up. He told me that if he cycled any slower he was going to fall off.

One way or another we made progress and the beginning of the city of Turkmenabat appeared ahead of us out of the desert. Not being able to handle the taste of warm water and dry bread I was desperate to stop at the first available place that I could to buy some juice to get fluids and energy. Those last few kilometres across the desert I had been fantasising so much about a nice orange juice. I was therefore slightly annoyed when the first cafe appeared and Andreas went on ahead and zoomed straight passed. Only slightly annoyed mind you, because nothing was going to stop me from going in and getting a drink myself. Andreas could go on ahead now, it didn't matter. We had made it across the desert to Turkmenabat, and the border was just the other side of Turkmenabat. It was over. I had done it. I staggered into the cafe and bought a litre of juice. They had the kind of rug-covered-tables that you can lie on so I laid on one out of the sun and recovered. That had been a close one. But the worst was over, success in the Desert-Dash Challenge was a mere formality now.

I relaxed for about an hour and then decided that I had better get the rest of the day over with. Walking back outside was awful as it was now one pm and the hottest part of the day. I reckoned it would take me an hour or so to navigate Turkmenabat and then the border looked like it couldn't be more than ten kilometres out the other side. I had no worries about the six o'clock border deadline. What I was annoyed about was that I really wanted to rest in a hotel for a couple of nights and there would be plenty of hotels in Turkmenabat, none of which I could stay in because I had to leave the country. On the Uzbek side of the border there would be nothing but desert again. Stupid five day visa!

It took a lot longer than I thought to arrive in Turkmenabat. The entrance sign to the city was a long way from the centre and the main road seemed at first to be going around the city. I asked some people about the way to Farap, which was the small town nearest the actual border and received various estimates as to its distance, ranging from three kilometres to 150 kilometres. I guessed that the local people didn't travel to the border much. Finally I found a man who had a smart phone and could show me on a map where I was and where I needed to go. I looked at what he was showing me and froze in horror. It was really far. It was really f*cking far. Oh this was bad. This was very, very bad.

I started cycling as fast as I could. I had less than three hours until the border would close and my visa would expire and I had to make it another maybe 30, 40 or 50 kilometres in that time. This from a man who until this point had been crawling along at six or seven kilometres an hour. For those of you who can't do maths, may I tell you that you cannot do 50 kilometres in under three hours while travelling at six or seven kilometres per hour.

Desperate, I found some strength from somewhere and started moving a bit faster through the streets of the city, stopping only to ask people the way to Farap and following their pointing arms. My sickness and exhaustion was put on hold as I got beyond the city and began to believe I could still make it when with two hours left I asked another man the way and how far Farap was. "Its 20 kilometres," he said, "but the border is another 20 kilometres futher after Farap."

'No, no, no, no. 40 kilometres! No. It can't be. I can't do it. No, no, no, no.'

I was frantic. I pedalled as hard as I could until I was stopped by a police checkpoint where I asked how far it was to Uzbekistan and was told 15 kilometres. Then almost immediately I came to an army checkpoint where I again asked and was now told 20 kilometres. That was okay, still better then 40 kilometres. I could do 20 kilometres in two hours.

Ten kilometres of sprinting later I came to a fork in the road. There was another checkpoint so I quickly cycled over and called out to the man:

"Whith... w.... t.... Uthb....." My mouth was so dry I couldn't speak.

"I'm sorry, do you speak English?" he chuckled. I took a sip of water. I had hardly eaten or drunk anything all day. I have no idea how I was still moving at all.

"Which way to Uzbekistan?"

He pointed.

 "And how far is it?"

"20 kilometres."

"Ahhhhhh!!!!"

I continued, still sprinting for all I was worth, finding reserves of energy I had no idea existed. This was so hard. It is one thing to aim for a target when you know how far it is, what you have to do to get there, but when you have no idea how far away your goal is... IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING! And the road kept twisting and turning, snaking back on itself. 'Why, why? Why was it doing that? If it was straight I would have made it ages ago!'

The road crossed a canal but as I cycled up over the bridge a man called out to me from a farmyard and pointed me down a small road that was next to the canal. That couldn't be the way to the border surely? I asked another man who was walking across the bridge and he said it was. It was such a small non-descript, unsignposted road, could it really be the way? I couldn't afford to go the wrong way. There was yet another police checkpoint across the road so I went to check with them. They looked at me like I was mad as I cycled up desperately asking the way to Uzbekistan. The man paused and said nothing. "Dude, I do not have time for this. I totally respect your authority but right now I just need to know the way to Uzbekistan. Is it that way?" He nodded. "How many kilometres?" He held up ten fingers. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

The road took me directly into the face of the headwind again and was completely open desert apart from the canal so the wind was formidable. What in the world had I done to deserve this? What I had I done? God? Allah? President? What? I only had 40 minutes until the border closed so if it was ten kilometres I wasn't going to make it. The wind was just too much, I could only go ten kilometres an hour at full effort. I was exhausted. I was going to collapse. I stopped for five seconds and drank some coke, hoping desperately that the sugar and caffiene might spur me on to some miraculous superhuman final effort. But it was too little too late. The clock was ticking around towards the deadline. I wasn't going to make it. But I forced myself to keep going. To keep going as fast as I could. 'Its not over until its six, and its not six. Keep going as hard as you can until six.'

I kept on pushing. The wind kept on pushing back. It was agony, torture. I wanted to cry. A car came the other way and stopped and the woman handed me a bottle of orangeade which I drank. She was a money changer driving home from the border and wanted to know if I wanted to change money. Of course there was no time for that but I asked her how far the border was and she told me five kilometres. She probably drove there every day, she probably knew, so I decided to trust her. The time was 5.40pm. I still had 20 minutes. All I had to do was average 15 kilometres per hour for 20 minutes. Ah, but that wind, that wind! I was going 11, 12 kilometres per hour. 'Come on! You have to find something extra! I don't care where it comes from, you have to find something more! Push harder! Work harder!' 13, 14 kilometres per hour.

Ahead of me a row of trucks appeared parked at the side of the road and at the same time a convoy of trucks came the other way very slowly, combining to block out some of the wind. 15, 16, 17, 18 kilometres per hour. 'Come on! You're doing it! Come on!' Then all the trucks disappeared and I was back out into the open and the wind hit me like a freight train. 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 kilometres per hour. 'Botox'

But then suddenly another row of trucks came into view and a building. It was the border, it was definitely the border!!! Finally!!! It was 5.55pm and it was still more than a kilometre away, but nothing was going to stop me now. I stood up and slammed down on the pedals with everything I had and my speed increased. The clock kept ticking. 5.56... 5.57... 5.58. I got into the shelter of the trucks and my speed went up again, more than 20 kilometres per hour now as I cried out to a truck driver for directions to the border gates and he pointed the way as I zoomed past in a blur. I rounded the last row of trucks and there, at long, long last I was at the border. The guards let me through. It was 6.00pm exactly.

...and breathe...

I handed my passport to the guards at the entrance gates and took a big drink of orangeade while I waited for my certificate. I was panting and gasping for breath. I had never pushed myself that hard before. I couldn't really think straight. They handed me back my passport and pointed me to the main building which I pushed my bike over to and where I was greeted by another guard who ushered me and my bike inside. I knew I had to do this but I was in a real state. I mean, I was a complete mess. I was surrounded by more of those young recruits who gathered around and looked at me curiously. Nobody was telling me what to do, I think they were too stunned by my appearance, but I couldn't possibly stand up for a moment longer. I was still breathing hard, my lungs and heart struggling and failing to return to anything like normal. I leaned my bike against a desk and found a seat.

A man, I have no idea who he was, appeared before me who could speak French and he asked if I could explain myself. "Je suis fatigue" I said. This simple sentence which was little more than stating the flipping obvious apparently was enough to explain everything for him and he translated my problem to the young guards who were still looking at me like I was from Mars. But then an older and more serious man appeared and I was told to put my bags on a desk for inspection. I managed to rouse myself and lifted the first two panniers onto the desk. Another thorough search seemed on the cards, and I still hadn't cleaned out that disgusting pannier, but then the official told me to stop. I think he had noticed my condition and decided it would be easier to get me off the premises before I collapsed. He probably also wanted to go home. Instead my customs inspection consisted only of the French speaker pointing at a picture of the President on the wall and asking me something in French which I couldn't understand. I responded as best I could. "No.. (pant).. my... (gasp)...bags... (pant)... don't...(gasp) ... contain... (pant)... any... (gasp)... Presidents."

He shook his head and pointed more closely at the picture which also had a rug in it. Wow, was that what all the over-the-top searching was about? Looking for rug smugglers. I told him I wasn't a rug smuggler and that was it, I was free to stagger onwards towards passport control. There I found two officials who laughed at me. Mostly because they had to encourage me a great deal to lift my head up off their desk long enough for them to check I was the guy in my passport photo. As I don't look like I'm dying in my passport photo they may have struggled to believe I was the same guy, but they gave me the exit stamp anyway.

I pushed my bike out of the door, just out of sight of everyone, and then laid down on the concrete. I was still gasping for breath. I couldn't believe how wrecked I was. I really needed to sleep and wondered if there was anywhere I could put my tent up in the no-man's land between the two countries. I was in no condition to be entering any new countries and that was a sure fact. Some guards arrived in a van so I got up and walked a little way towards Uzbekistan, but there was still a half kilometre of road to go. Once I was away from the van I lay down on the road. I really needed to try and get myself together a little bit before I tried to go anywhere. The van drove over to me and a guard told me to get up and go.

I got on the bike and cycled the slowest half kilometre in the history of cycling. The van and the guards were waiting for me when I got there. This was apparently the final passport check for Turkmenistan, the first Uzbekistan guards were twenty metres away. As my passport was checked for the last time I took the opportunity for another lie down. I asked the guards if I could sleep somewhere in my tent and they said no, but I could sleep just on the Uzbekistan side of this no-man's land. There did appear to be a lot of trucks parked there that must have been spending the night between the borders, so I thanked them and staggered onwards towards the Uzbekistan guards who were watching and waiting for me with their machine guns.

I had done it! I was out of Turkmenistan, the Desert-Dash Challenge had been completed. Sorry if I made it look easy. As for the results of the Desert-Duel with Andreas, it did appear he may have beaten me to the border, but unfortunately for him he was disqualified on a technicality, for having taken a car on the first day. A resounding success for me all round then!

TURKMENISTAN SUMMARY:

Time: Five days and not a minute more

Distance: 542 kilometres

Best bits: Camels

Worst bits: Headwinds, crosswinds, sandstorms, the heat, punctures, being violently sick, running out of water, poor roads, a too-short-visa, a too-far-away-border and an annoying Austrian man

Top tip: Good luck!