Povits, Sean 2007 Journal July 30 Area around Santa Cruz del Quiche, Dept. El Quiche, Guatemala. Fed, Carlos, Gustavo and I prepared specimens yesterday in the morning and then drove to Santa Cruz del Quiche in the afternoon/evening. This morning, we met briefly with people from Defensoria K'iche', a NGO who Carlos met with earlier to arrange permission to work on the road to Santa Rosa Chujuyut. We had been expelled from this area in 2005 and banned from returning. We went to the town of Guiz Che Cuarta, where the last auxiliary mayor wasn't there. We talked to someone else in charge, who said that the community hadn't been informed yet because the auxiliary mayor hadn't told anyone, and that we had to wait until 24th when they have a town meeting. We talked to the aquacel as well, and he knew about us but told us the same story. They refused to accompany us and told us that we couldn't go, so we left, not wanting to lose the little progress we had made or for. This was infuriating to me - we were assured everything was OK for us to work here. They just operate by a different system than us, I guess; could be good at times (very democratic) but frustrating when a decision needs to be made. We drove to San Pedro Jocopilas and took the road to San Bartholome Jocotenango, looking for another place to search. We went off on a dirt road southeast from the main road and searched in 2 spots, but found only 1 Rhodnius (15 min search in bank and bromeliads- CRVA1192) and 1 Scleron (CRVA1193) and 1 Lophoromphus (14:15-14:45 searching). The habitat here was fairly dry pine forest, with some good stumps and a few good bromeliads. We took a side road south from the main road and went over the mountains to San Pedro. On the way,