Day 13 The World According to Ian

Illness strikes with no warning.
One day yo are riding along without a care in the world.
The next you feel the sweating and the onset of stomach cramps .
Most of us have experienced this at some time in our lives.
For me it hit hard . I knew we need to push on to the Sahara ,but did not know just how hard this would be .
We left Gorge Du Dades on Saturday morning . Ok I was not feeling brilliant , but I thought I was ok . I wanted to do our next planned piste.
1 hour later this all changed . The fever had taken hold and my strength was fading .
The piste was off and to carry on by road was decided .
Wow what a road .It was long ,straight and getting warmer each minute . At one point the temperature gauge (which has only been working intermittently ) came on with a reading of 38.5 degrees . I would have preferred it not to have come on at this point . A brief stop for a coke (I was hoping for some sleep as Justin mentioned previously , but Mohammed put pay to that .
At 3.30 totally exhausted , back pack of water nearly empty and struggling to stay focused on anything but a Hotel we pass Rissani , our aim to get to Merzouga which is 19km away .
19km doesn't sound far , but trust me when you are exhausted ,de hydrated and physically sick this was the worst 19km of my life . At one point in between Justin decided to stop for a cigarette , I could not get the energy to speak and willed him to make it the quickest smoke he had ever had as I sat there crash helmet on and willing for Merzouga to appear on this long sun drenched desert road .
At 4pm we passed a Riad with pool and looked good from the outside ,all be it out of town . I didn't care , whatever it cost we were staying here as I could not continue.
I struggled up the stairs to room 13 overlooking the pool , air conditioning on and Justin unloading both bikes .After unloading both bikes Justin gave me some local 'poison 'that he had obtained from the Riad manager . It was great!!
I slept from 4pm (with a few toiletry issues in between ) until 8am .
I felt uncomfortable but better ,although in no way fit enough to ride today so a day of relaxing by the pool was decided upon.
As I write this 7.30pm I am now hopefully going to try and eat a light meal (if the Moroccans can do such a thing) as I have not eaten for 2 days now , but I know all will be fine and am looking forward to getting on the bike for our 2 hard days piste riding across the Desert.