Rashed’s dad gave us the tour of his house – the fresh rainwater well (yes we did try it and it was amazing), the new veranda, the olives, vegetable patch and so on. He even made us traditional Tunisian tea just as Rashed came back with breakfast. You could not want to meet nicer people in complete contrast to the customs. What is it about short fat men in uniforms drunk with power. We were still waiting our guide to call – his number was ringing unobtainable. He called around 1030 and we confidently predicted our arrival at the border for 1230. We arrived at the border at 2 with our guide sounding a little impatient. Border papers took a couple of hours with the support of our guide – next to impossible without his help for sure.

By the time we had eaten on the Libyan side of the border, there was only an hour of daylight. We had 300km to ride which took us through Tripoli. Tripoli was an absolute nightmare. Driving in Libya is like swimming with hungry sharks. Some of these cars couldn’t pass for cars never mind an MOT. Everyone wanted to be in the same lane at the same time. The only problem was that they were all full but someone always came out of nowhere and just crowbared themselves into a non-existent gap usually causing a major panic to all the foreigners, namely us!

We were already half scared to death before we got there because everyone kept telling us it was Dangerous, we’ll be kidnapped and end up in one of the Colonel’s (Gaddafi) Chicken Party Buckets. People were driving talking on their mobile phones whilst eating their evening meal with kids not only with no kiddy seats and no seat belts but standing up in the car looking out at the two Aliens riding through town on funny horses. Renaming films came to mind. Wacky-Backy Races. Cannon and Ball Runs and Death Race 2010.

Some geezer would nearly kill you, wave, look you strait in the eye with that friendly smile that says, “Get the f*** out of the way Infidel”. One thing about the Libyans is that they wear their hearts on their sleeve. (ours were back in the UK). They have no road signs in English so you they have you right where they want you... LOST!

We think they just enjoy ribbing us and couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the Mosques had twin towers. But we have had nothing but a warm welcome from everyone we have met. Apart from the life threatening hell ride through Tripoli, we had only one other drama on route the hotel. I (Graham) suddenly felt the bike tipping to one side and thought we’d need the tyre changing training from Honda. But as cars were beeping like mad, i checked the back of the bike ad felt something significant was amiss. I had lost a 20 litre jerry can off the top of pannier – and it was full! I was checking mirrors rapido for balls of fire and chasing cops but all i saw was Danny’s lights – obviously i’d not hit him with my improvised road depth charge.

We stopped for check the rest of the luggage whilst our guide went back to search for the jerrycan. Almost immediately a car load of locals stopped and we thought we might become kidnapping statistics but as with everyone we met, all they wanted to do was offer help. The jerrycan was not recovered so something else will need to be acquired tomorrow.