Firstly, thank you for everyone's emails and messages- they've been so inspiring, motivating and moving.  I'll endeavour to respond to each and everyone of you, but in the meantime please know that you've all collectively lifted my spirits and put things back into perspective for me.  Thank you so much, it's all very over whelming.

Today's been a largely chilled day.  We awoke early and Shane, Wade & I each had a 1 hour massage from a local masseuse who came to our lodge.  The pain when she pummelled and kneaded my legs paled in significance to any of the hours i've spent getting tattooed.  I had no idea my legs were that sore or tired.  In hindsight, i'm not too surprised considering we've rode almost 3,000kms to date.

I'm still coming to terms with having lost my "E.F.I" status (meaning one's cycled Every Fabulous/F*#king Inch), but as was pointed out by someone, swallowing your pride is much better than soldiering on and self-inflicting some kind of (permanent?) damage.  Perhaps that's melodramatic, but in these conditions and under these circumstances, the chance of something severe happening to your body are definitely increased.  The world record for cycling through Africa was an average daily km amount of 160kms.  We're about 10% behind this.  Unintentionally, we're about 15% behind this pace.  

Wade pointed out to me that the fact we've been at 2,000m-2,500m altitude would definitely have something to do with what I experienced, in that there's less oxygen at this altitude which increases the difficulty of physical activities.  I hope he's right, as even today, I struggled to walk up a set of 5 stairs without panting and gasping and having to stop at the top.  

Anyway, Gondar's a great place to be and our lodge is fantastic.  It's been a perfect place for me to have a physical and emotional breakdown as I only have to limp about 20 metres to a cafe, a restaurant and an outdoor garden.  The guys seem quite impressed with my choice.

In an attempt to feel somewhat more human, I crawled off this morning to find a barber and have a haircut and a shave.  I'm someone who can complete both of these tasks, solo, in less than 10 minutes.  My barber who I found today, on the other hand, took a cool 90 minutes as he meticulously converted me from a unkempt bearded hobo to a sleek and preened 'gentleman'.  All without me being able to speak the local Ahmaric and him not unable to speak or understand English.  If anyone out there wants a partner for any charades competitions: I'm your man.  

The prevalence of machine guns in Ethiopia has increased exponentially.  It's not that Sudan didn't have guys walking around with AK47s, it's just that they wore a uniform which tends to comfort you a little as you think that a) he’s probably undergone official training on how to shoot straight and b) wearing a uniform, he’s clearly a ‘good guy’ and only shoots ‘bad guys’ which us four clearly are not.  In Ethiopia, more people carry the same, efficient AK47, but not one of them wears a uniform which eliminated the comfort one draws from a) and b) above.  I’ve seen a guy out walking his goats and young daughters with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.  We all hoped he was protecting his goats from non-human eating animals.  Unfortunately, we recognize this as being a long shot.  Walking around Gondar, you see people of all ages (i.e. 15-60) carrying machine guns.  Again, they’re not in uniform either.  I smile and try to do my best to look like a good guy.  To date, this method has worked.

So that’s all from me today , I’ve uploaded a lot of photos too, so head over and check them out.  I’ve put about 10 new ones on the Egypt page and also added a Sudan page and uploaded over 100 shots there too.

I’ve also added another youtube video of Gavan & I tuktuk’ing our way through Dongola, Sudan, to get a coffee.

Thank you again everyone, it means the world.