Seamail No. 5 part dos

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We tired quickly of the herds of people being bussed into tulum, so we got in our car and headed inland to another mayan city of Coba. Coba was the largest city of the mayan empire, covering almost 70 square kilometers, and is still being heavily excavated. It is flat in the middle of the jungle, with trees growing right out of all of the buildings, including the huge pyramids as the jungle has reclaimed huge amount of its rightful property. It is an incredible place that involves lots of walking because of it's immense size. Liza and I climbed to the top of the tallest structure of the mayan world, a pyramid whose precipice soars two stories above the tree tops. It's an incredible view, and a very steep climb, making for fun on the way down as you avoid mistepping on the crumbling staircase. Overall, very exhilarating. Highlights of Coba include lots of German speaking tourists (my favorite!), and two ball courts where the mayan people played what must have been a very interesting game on a court that resembles a skateboarder’s halfpipe with straight instead of curved diagonal walls that extend parallel to each other with a flat area between. In the center of each walls top end, where a skateboarder might plant his hand to perform a trick, sits a hoop, much the size of a basketball goal without the backboard and laid on it's side extending toward the center of the arena. All this made of stone, mind you. By our standards, a very interesting field indeed. I would love to see the game that was played there. Our water supply waning, and our throats parched, we bought some water before heading back on the road towards home. We took driving breaks in Akumal, where the beach was calling our names, and in playa del carmen, where some last minute shopping was doing the same.

Now it's Saturday night and mom left yesterday morning, after which we spent the day in cancun, where we actually did make it to a movie at Cineopolis VIP, where the seats resemble arm chairs more than they do movie seats, with reclining backs and leather upholstery; and where, if you want, you can order dinner and a beer with your movie and set it on the table that separates every two seats from the next two seats. It is the perfect movie theater, with Dolby digital sound, a huge screen, stadium seating and a steal at 5 dollars per ticket. 3.80 per ticket on Wednesdays. We saw Signs, which had Spanish subtitles. We had fun pretending we were some of the better people, then we went to a mexican department store and tried on expensive clothes we had no intention of buying just to see what they looked like on. Tomorrow is the beach clean up day that Enrique has been putting together, and it should be interesting considering the amount of debris that Isidore washed up.

As for us, we'll keep moving forward. Our lives have settled into a routine that in a few short weeks will be broken by our departure for Costa Rica, but before that we'll travel about 8 days around the yucatan peninsula after the rental lease on our apartment runs out on the 16th. Our plan is to head back to Tulum, go to Chichen Itza, see Merida, and perhaps stay a night in a city called Campeche on the gulf coast. We'll see what pans out. In the more immediate future are two or three more events, the first of which is tropical storm Lili, which seems to be on the same track as hurricane Isidore was, and should be upgraded to a hurricane in the next day or so. Looks like it might hit us by Wednesday. Also there is hurricane Kyle, whose current trajectory seems to place it on a collision course with Lili very close to us. Who knows what will happen, and we're hoping to get lucky this time. Don't worry about us, though, hurricane Isidore was pretty powerful, but from what we've heard there was only one fatality. We'll be careful. The other important event is Liza's birthday! Everyone keep Liza in your thoughts on the 2nd of October as she smashes through 21 in a headlong dash for 22. How DO the years fly by.

That's all for us right now. As always, we'll keep you posted whenever possible, and also as always, dont be shy in pushing that reply button and sending us a few sentences. We love hearing from all of you, and sit here constantly thinking of you, hoping all is well. Incidentally, if you really want to make someone's day, instead of hitting the reply button when responding to the seamails every time, every once in a while, type in my address, jschomer@email.com. Liza gets all the responses, and all i get is the lonely message telling me I have no new messages...

check our website at http://lizamueller.tripod.com/index.html for more pics!

We love you, take care.

Liza and Jerad

music pick of the week goes to the weather channel. Have you ever just sat there watching it all day during a hurricane? It makes you want to shoot yourself! Enjoy.