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was too hot to stand and wait at the road side; if I was going to be stationary
I had to find some shade in which to wait. The best I could do was to crouch
beside a fence and try and tuck myself into the small amount of shade it
offered. I tried pouring water from my bottle over my head to cool me down
but rather than getting the usual cold water shock down my back it was
more like standing under a warm shower. I waited and waited, I was getting
worried as to where Katie was. Eventually she appeared pushing her bike,
completely spent. I sat her down poured water over her and tried to make
her eat all of my remaining food, sesame bread sticks, cereal bars, fruit chews,
anything to try and inject some energy in to her. Revived slightly we were able
to continue and cross into Albania.

Just 4km over the border Katie was once again showing signs of extreme
fatigue, barely moving at all on the bike. It was 4pm and as we passed a
restaurant I decided we should call it a day, get some food and have an early
night there was just no point in us continuing when Katie was feeling so bad.
We pulled into the car park of the restaurant to see if they had any
accommodation and Katie collapsed, she struggled to actually get off the
bike and couldn’t walk unaided into the building. The kindness of the hotel
staff was remarkable, they couldn’t speak any English and my Albanian is
terrible (!) but they realised we were in trouble and made Katie a make shift
bed from chairs and a blanket in the office. We stayed there for a few hours
whilst Katie slept a little and I force fed her coke, electrolyte fluids and our
remaining food. We then just had the small matter of a 10km ride to the
nearest hotel which she bravely managed. We couldn’t find any hot food that
night so had to make do with crisps and cheese sandwiches in our hotel room,
not ideal especially for Katie.

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