Hauken, James 1978 Journal Hotel Mansión Imperial, Oaxaca, Est. Oaxaca, Mexico /3 Dec Because of the lack of any rain shadow effect because of proximity to the oceans, such that it is easy to imagine them having been well- developed cloudforest here at one time, as Macdougall's description states. However, if similar forest exists anywhere nearby, it will require a major effort to get into such areas. Returning to the Pan-Am highway we returned to El Camaron and then drove towards San Carlos Yautepex hoping to get into the high mountains visible to the S. However, we were again told that passage beyond SC Yautepex requires 4-wheel drive, but that there are roads connecting many towns and forest service camps in the mountains. 14 Dec Yesterday Tom and I attempted to visit C. Bogert's Maurus localities 8-9 mi. W of Asuncion Mixtepec. Driving S on Mex 175 to Pto. Escandido we turned off onto the dirt road W towards Santa Cruz Mixtepec that leaves the highway ~1 mi S of Valdeflores. The river crossing ~5 km in that prevented our travel in summer is too much to cross this time. However, the road was very pitted and rocky, and got worse as we proceeded to Asuncion Mixtepec where at above which it was impassable (at ~2000 m). We tried hiking up to favorable elevations, but after ~1½ hours and reaching ~2600 m we hadn't