Los Angeles, California, USA

Well it has been just over a week now and we are almost ready to head south, in fact we are hoping to head down to Mexico on Monday or Tuesday of next week. The weather here in LA has been a bit wet and we are waiting for the sun to come back again so we don't start off our journey by getting drenched.

We have found our bike!, which was actually the easiest part of this preparation phase. The second day we were in LA we met up with Lillo in an Italian restaurant called La Piazza, we had contacted him earlier from Oz. Lillo has been an absolute star. He agreed to delay showing the bike to anyone but us after he heard of our trip. So he cancelled all other buyers and agreed to wait until we made it to LA.

Sitting in La Piazza was surreal, we couldn't believe that after just one day we were on the other side of the world in LA looking at buying a bike to take us down south, we felt like we were living a film, it is amazing how much life can change in such a short amount of time.

The bike turns out to be exactly what we wanted: A 2004 1150 GS Adventure, fully kitted out for the trip. Lillo had some massive aluminium panniers fitted and made some other really nifty modifications that make the bike perfect for our purpose. Pictures will follow soon.

Lillo and his friends have been really helpful in getting the other bits and pieces organized. With their help we sorted out insurance, a camera and the route for our first leg down to Baja. One of the trio (Marco) is about to head to Panama himself , so hopefully we get to meet somewhere along the way. Really great guys, thanks heaps for all your help and good wishes!!!

We were lucky enough to meet with some family friends on short notice. Anja, Heinz and Erika are originally from Germany and were close friends of my grandparents (although the connection between our families goes back even further then that) and moved to California in the sixties (Heinz and Erika) and seventies (Anja). When I first came to California as a 13 year old we stayed with them and I spent a lot of time with their son Thomas.

We all met at a revolving restaurant in downtown LA and had a great night catching up together. The next day Anja helped us tremendously with the final pieces of equipment that we needed: protective bike clothing. Afterwards we went to the famous Griffith Observatory (as seen in countless movies) and to Hollywood boulevard before heading to Anja's home where we had a chance to read a diary that was written by my grandfather and given to Anja's parents as a gift. I learned about the tragic fate of my great uncles, both of whom drowned before the second world war. When we were reading the diary it was describing how one of my great uncles went missing on the Weser river on the 22nd January 1939, we gradually realised that is was the anniversary of his death on the day we were reading the diary, so it was exactly sixty nine years since he had died.

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I must say the locals here have been cheerful, generous and helpful time and again. People often ask us if we need assistance, offer us their phones to make calls and assist us in all kinds of ways, we have really felt looked after. When you are far from home in a strange city these acts of generosity have made a huge difference and have been a great comfort.
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Next stop: Crossing into Mexico at Mexicali and heading into Baja California.

Shell & Alex