February 8

It rained overnight and was still gray in the morning. Since we had packed up the night and our plan for the morning involved using the Playa Caribe pool until we had to leave, we needed a new plan. So we headed to the Coba ruins. These ruins are about 40 km inland from Tulum. We had left a little later than we would ideally like to, but still arrived ahead of the masses. To get to one group of ruins at Coba, it is 2-3 kms in the reserve and another km to get to another site (Coba was an early, large Mayan city with many kms of raised Mayan roads). We decided to get two bikes and a bicycle taxi. Jason could not have been happier, biking (without a helmet as marvelled) through the jungle to ruins sites. Coba is only partially excavated even at the major sites so the ruins often have trees growing out of them. Keira was also quite happy in the bicycle taxi. The other three climbed to to the top of the grand pyramid -Keira forgetting her fear of heights until she stopped climbing and looked down. Heather got a greta work out ferrying children down. It was a great experience. After we tried to see the crocodiles in the lake but they weren't there - no sun!!
We drove into Tulum and had lunch which everyone enjoyed (chicken tacos) and a visit to the panaderia. We also visited the san francisco supermarket AGAIn for snacks. As we left the skies opened and a tropical downpour ensued. The kids we a little wide-eyed as we made our way down the road south from Tulum into the Si'an Kaan Biosphere. The road is awful and we were going about 10 km an hour. The potholes filled with water and the palms were dripping. Finally we got to cesiak where it wasn't raining. We unpacked into our tent, had a swim and generally tried to settle into the place.
We are now tucked in for the night in our tent cabin. It is dim but comfortable. Jason is listening to a story on his ipod and Keira is listening to music on her mp 3. She has rejeuvanated after a delicious dinner here at cesiak and has a million questions and some concerns about being in the dark in the middle of the jungle. Bedouin Soundclash seems to be taking away some of her worries as she bounces along. I will leave the last word to her. "Guys is something going on at the ocean?" Just the waves!