Ranto, Sean 2009 Journal Yajalon area, Chiapas, Mexico Dec. 6 Spent Dec. 4 waiting for Carlos to show up in San Cristobal, and most of yesterday was spent in San Gus because Antonio had a report to finish. We drove to Yajalon in the evening and he stayed up all night working on it. In the morning we drove W out of town through La Nortena to Emiliano Zapata, where we received a less-than friendly welcome in 2007. This time, permission to climb Cerro Acabalina had supposedly been arranged through a teacher in Yajalon. We had to wait 2 hours for mass to end, then spent an hour talking with people. They eventually told us we had to ask the entire town at their assembly, so Antonio will return then. We tried the road that crosses a high pass and continues down to Pueblo Nuevo Zitalo - it was good almost up to the highest point, and my car nearly made it. The area was clearly nice cloud forest before, but is now trashed, at least along the road; I think there is still forest just over the ridge. We drove back to Yajalon and took road E to Amado Nervo. Stopped 9.0 km from the highway and waited till nightfall to search in a small patch of cloud forest. There were enormous trees, lots of tree ferns, a small stream and some rocks with small caves. It seems like a perfect forest for Cryptotriton, although part of it was more disturbed with mostly tree ferns and few trees. It was cool and foggy, but the vegetation was wet from yesterday's rains. We searched from 18:17-21:00; Antonio got a B. rulessene, while I got 3 more plus a Plethodryls moteki, Hyloxalus enthymate, and 3 Craugastor of 2 species. We drove back to San Cristobal, arriving at 2 AM.