Monday, 12 April 2010 17:06 Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 May 2010 10:22 Written by Claudine du Plessis

Alex is another friend I met while volunteering in Guatemala and she now lives in Leipzig. She met her boyfriend Lalo in Mexico and their baby girl, Rosalie was born on the 2nd of April. Because I planned to visit her before we knew the time of the birth, she organized for us to stay with her friend, Tillman or Till.

Leipzig from Frankenthal is 550km and it was a tough ride there. Apart from the weather being very temperamental (rainy, cloudy, windy, snow, sunshine - changing every 15 minutes), Yuki started making really strange noises. This already started when on the way to Niclas, but it really got serious now. It was a "clack-clack" sound which got worse the slower we went and the bike felt as though it was wobbling. Almost halfway, we stopped at a parking next to the highway, where there were luckily another biker couple that helped us look for the problem. We figured the back brake pad got so worn that it started sliding to the locked position and that caused a whistling sound. The clacking sound was caused by the chain, which also needed replacing. Then the wobbling was the back wheel that wasn't straight anymore (maybe everything else caused this). Quick repairs was done, the brake pad was wedged away from the disk, the chain was tightened and the wheel was kicked straight. Because it was a Sunday, no bike shops were open, so this would have to have done until the next day. We had to stop a couple of times on the way again to just adjust the back brake again.

When we arrived at Alex, we were frozen. While we were admiring baby Rosalie, she made us some warm tea and even quickly cooked pizza and noodles and shrimps. Rosalie is the tiniest, cutest and calmest little baby with a head full of black hair. I also met Lalo for the first time, a really warm and friendly guy, he even went to buy us some beers. In Mexico, he runs a beautiful coffee and holiday ranch together with his parents. We then met Till (short for Tillman), Alex's friend with whom we were staying. Till is a primatologist, that means he is studying the behaviour of primates or monkeys. At the moment his job mainly involves analyzing chimpanzee poo and he is going to Congo soon to do some research there. He is also a climbing enthusiast. Till made us feel very welcome in his house which he shares with a couple of housemates. In the morning before he went to work, he even made us a breakfast.





The day in Leipzig was mainly spent getting Yuki fixed. The chain, sprocket, back bearing (this is what was causing the bike to wobble) and brakes were replaced and together with an oil change it amounted to a grand total of 440 euros. A hefty sum of money, but better than getting into trouble somewhere on a highway.  That night I cooked pasta for 8 people and we had a nice dinner.

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