Points, Dean 2009 Journal Jan. 9 San Mateo chistatan area, Depto. Huehuetenango, Guatemala. We drove up towards San Mateo Chistatan in search of Pseudotriton "chrysum", currently being described by Jon Campbell. We took a wrong turn after Bulij and ended up in a fairly nice oak-madrone-pine forest with lots of bromeliads just before the small village of Palagua. We went back and continued to San Mateo, where we got a 1-day permit and someone from the municipality to go with us for Q100. We asked him about bromeliads and he directed us back the way we had come. We found only pine forest and grassland and it became clear he didn't know what a bromeliad was. We then drove to a spot ca. 4 Km (road) from San Mateo on the main road to Huehue, where we found some big oaks still standing. There were no bromeliads here, but we searched for about an hour under bark and in logs. This was clearly a nice oak forest once but it is now very open and highly disturbed. I got 3 B. rostrata in logs, we got 3 Dyaloporus in a trunk and Jacobo found a Bufo leucutus. We dropped off our "guide", got another who wanted a ride to Bulij (spelling?) and returned to the forest near Palagua. We searched in bromeliads from 16:30 - almost 18:00. The forest floor was very dry and bromeliads were productive. I got 2 B. rostrata and 3 B. linnean, including 3 salamanders in 1 bromeliad. Carlos and Jacobo got a B. rostrata and a big B. leucutus. We left at dusk and spent much of the evening preparing specimens. We had planned to go to Laguna Maxbal, near Finca Chiflac, in the next day or two, but the logistics proved complex and the accommodation/permit situation there was uncertain, so we decided not to move. The weather continued to be unseasonably dry.