Marichuy toured the five Zapatista Caracoles, the name given to the administrative headquarters in which the EZLN exercises a form of autonomous government. The rebels have severed all institutional and partisan relationships with the Mexican government to create their own systems of education, health, justice, government, and security.

These five Caracoles bring together some 30 autonomous municipalities dating from 2003 in which around 250,000 indigenous people make a living from their production of coffee, corn, and various other micro-enterprises.

The caravan of vehicles moving from one Caracol to another was slow, due to potholes, roads that weren't fully paved, raging downpours, and intense heat. But in each place people waited for Marichuy's arrival, sometimes spending upwards of five hours outside, as was the case with the Caracol de Morelia.

In the Caracol events, each of the Zapatista commanders gave speeches around similar themes: a critique of capitalism arguing it destroys the country and extends impunity to those who commit femicides; a historical account of sexual violations and mistreatment their grandmothers endured at the hands of the region's landowners; and the daily violence confronted in their own families and communities.

And unlike many speeches delivered in support of other presidential candidates**.** Commander Hortencia explicitly called upon female professionals, students, scientists, employees, and artists, urging them to join the cause and to confront neoliberalism. "We have to unite our struggle with those who have their own struggles and ensure that politics don't divide us. As if we need to ask for permission to exist, to be, to fight. The status quo political institution is ashamed of us: We women of color, gays, lesbians, transgender people, and everything different."

Commander Hortencia pointed out that "the world is very big and all of us fit, all of us. The only thing that does not fit is the capitalist system because it dominates everything and doesn't even let us breathe. Worst of all is that capitalism has no end—no death, destruction, misery, or desolation is enough. No, it wants more: More war, more death, more destruction."