Thousands of American tourists are stranded in Mexico, after buses and businesses were set on fire Sunday following the killing of "El Mencho,” the leader of the country's most powerful drug cartel.
Aaron Mason is an American stranded in Puerto Vallarta. He told KNX News’ Alex Silverman he was in the downtown area when he saw the chaos unfolding.
“I'm walking down the hill, and I could see black smoke in the distance, kind of higher up on one of the hills, and you just think, ‘Oh my gosh. Something's on fire. I wonder what it is. Is it a house? Is it a restaurant?’” he recalled. “Kept walking, and then I saw another plume of smoke. Then I turned the corner on the street where the gym is, and I saw flames, and I'm like, ‘What the heck?’ And I got closer [and] saw a car just completely engulfed in flames. You connect the dots, and you say to yourself, ‘OK, this is more than just an isolated incident.’”
Mason described the scene as a “tale of two worlds.”
“I remember this lady, who was from here, running toward me, and in a panic, and saying, ‘This is dangerous. We need to get out of here,’” he said. “And I ran into this one couple who were like, ‘We heard this is the cartel. This is the cartel.’ And then I'm walking back along the boardwalk. And even though there's smoke in this one area, there are people in this particular restaurant I remember crossing [and[ they're all just watching the [USA Men’s] hockey game. They have no idea that this is happening. In my group, I'm here with about eight other guys, and they're texting me saying, ‘Aaron, you need to get back to the villa.’ It sunk in there for me that this is something really serious.”
Mason said he and other tourists have been hunkered down.
“We have a staff that works here that prepares food and all of that, and they couldn't get here yesterday,” he said. “They were actually able to finally get here today to drop off food because we were running low on food. No one was expecting this, and the staff, and God bless them, they're wonderful. But they were telling us what it was like yesterday. The one staff [member] said where she lives…it was completely surrounded by vehicle fire. She couldn't get out.”
Listen to the full interview in the audio above.
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