Robbery!

Yesterday was a bad day. Arrived in Alicante around 2pm and found a small park to rest for a couple of hours while it cooled down. Geoff got the mat out and had a siesta while i went and wandered around the marina. At this point somebody stole my handlebar bag, complete with camera, passport, credit cards ect. Geoff also had his credit cards stolen but his bag was not taken. We now have no cards so cant get any money out! I have no id so cant get back into the UK. Perfect.
The worst thing is that we have lost all of our photos past Cyprus, including a lot of really good ones from the middle east.
Despite this, the progress has been very good. In the past 5 days we have cycled 618km.
Last night we had a good night out to celebrate the thefts. Geoff thought it would be a good idea to dance on a table with his shirt off and nearly got kicked out of the club.

Duncs

Just thought I´d add a couple of comments. It´s bloody typical that after sleeping rough in the Albanian mountains, kipping on the streets of Beirut, hitch-hiking opposite the West Bank, negotiating with Ammanian businessmen, and getting harranged by angry Greek Shepards at daybreak, all without any incident, we let our guard down in the safety of the continent. No chance of recovery of any of our stuff, and the lack of money is a serious problem. We have a paltry 150 euros left which we had stashed in various panniers, and that´s going to have to last us for a while. We´re used to living on a tight budget, but when you cycle an average of 130km a day, in the heat of South Spain, you need to eat a lot of calories and drink a lot of fluids. As Duncan said, the worst bit is that the only photos we have of the past 6 weeks are what we uploaded (at greatly reduced quality) to the blog. We lost a lot of stunners, including Petra, Damascene markets, and "The Kite Runner" style towns in Jordan.

Needless to say, we´re pissed off!

Geoff