Well, Kate and I are here in Oaxaca, and I have been working on mapping the mountain. Sorry it took me so long to post, but I have been very busy trying to figure out my mapping software. I finally got it all sorted out last night. Hector made it just fine, and we are staying in a beautiful town home with a large garden courtyard. Hector runs around and plays with his new friend, Benito, a beagle. Kate has just won an award from the Poetry Society of America, and they will be publishing a book of her poems. She is working very hard preparing for a show of her art work in Chicago this December.

The trip here was somewhat fun, if not adventurous. We crossed the border into Reynosa, just on the other side of Macallen, Texas. It was a much nicer crossing than Nueva Loredo. Then, we proceeded to drive down the coast of Tamaulipas and Vera Cruz. The first day was pretty rough as the road was small and full of pot holes, nonetheless, we managed to make it to a lovely town on the coast of Vera Cruz called TUXPAN. Since it is along the coast, it is very hot and humid there, but the people were real nice and the town is very pretty, situated along a large river bank. The following day the roads were much nicer, and we drove right along the Gulf coast, I mean 200 meters from the water. It was beautiful with the mountains to our right and the Gulf to our left. There were many small resort towns and hundreds of hotels. We had planned on stopping in Vera Cruz City, but we made such good time that we decided to drive to Cordoba or Orizaba. Unfortunately, none of the hotels I called in either of those places would allow dogs, so we had to keep driving. We finally made it to the town of Tehuacan, and I am glad we did. Tehaucan was a wonderful town, and we stayed in a large gorgeous hotel righ off the zocalo (main plaza).

The next day we made it to Oaxaca and our lovely new home. I was supposed to get to work on September 10th, and we actually did work for three days, when a representative of the Bienes Comunales told us that he was going to have to shut us down. For those of you who don't know, the small pueblos in Mexico operate on their own government system it is often referred to as Uso sus custumbres. In this system, members of the town rotate through religious and civil authority positions. In any case, Bienes Comunales are a group of people who are in charge of the town's comunal lands--so Cerro Danush falls into this category. In any case, I had received permission from them to work, but then they changed their minds and told me I had to get a letter from the legal offices of the federal goverment. I had already received permission from the federal government, this was just a process of jumping through hoops. For the next two weeks I went to every meeting (Wednesday and Sunday nights) with a newly procured letter. Finally, they allowed me continue, and I am now happily walking up and down that mountain everyday.

Sorry to have made this short and pictureless, but I am pretty tired after just coming in from the field. I should be able to start posting pictures this weekend. STAY TUNED
Sonny