Puerto Vallarta trip turns into 24-hour nightmare for Canadians
A few hours later, they received a text telling them that a fuel tanker nearby had been set on fire, and that’s when they knew they had to leave. Fortunately, the fire was eventually put out.
There was also another issue: Omar and his friend hadn’t eaten anything all day. So at around 8:45 p.m., when he saw people lining up outside a kiosk for groceries, he knew they needed to act.
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“I was telling my friend, ‘You know what? Let’s go now before the lineup gets bigger.’ And then we get a text saying our building is going into lockdown at 10 p.m.,” he said.
On their walk to the kiosk, they saw the extent of the damage: the burnt tanker and cars.
“The fire was still going on in the car beside the tanker, so that was scary,” recalled Omar.
They returned to their unit with a few supplies: pasta, instant noodles, yogurt, and pizza. He said that he’s grateful to the staff and the Airbnb owner, a Canadian from Ottawa named Norman.
Yogi Omar with Airbnb owner Norman (Supplied)
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“He said, ‘Oh, there’s cheese and crackers, and here’s some wine,'” he said. “He was so generous, but also good at calming people down because everyone was freaking out.”
Omar added that due to the misinformation online, he was careful to only share photos and videos he had personally taken.
And despite the fear, he said that people were there for each other.
“The last two days have been the sh*ttiest time. But what I learned from it is that humans’ true nature comes out. And I see a lot of camaraderie between people,” he shared. “It doesn’t matter where you’re from, who you are, if you’re staff, if you’re a guest, if you’re whatever it is, we all work together.”
For now, he said WestJet has offered him accommodation vouchers and rebooked his flight for March 2. He also urges Canadians to be careful about where they’re travelling, but also said that a queer-friendly place like Puerto Vallarta is rare.
His advice: “Spend the money and do come back, but you know, give it a little bit of time.”
“We live in a country where we don’t have to live in fear each day”
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Kirsty Provan, also based in Vancouver, is a writer, actor, and CEO of Pacific Fairytales. She flew into Puerto Vallarta with her friend Natalie Moon, an acting and dialect coach, to take some time away while dealing with a break-up.
Provan and Moon were staying in Sayulita, a town that’s an hour’s drive from Puerto Vallarta. They started their day early that Sunday: at around 7:45 a.m., they got on a shuttle that drove through traffic on the highway, towards a dock in Nuevo Vallarta for a tour of the renowned Marietas Islands.
“Everyone got seasick, which means nobody was really drinking,” said Provan.
She then overheard two women on the tour discussing something. When she asked them what they were talking about, they told her that a major cartel leader had been killed. She quickly realized that something wasn’t right when she got a text from an Irish tourist she had met during her trip.
“She was basically like, ‘We’re in our hotel rooms, we’re not allowed out. They’ve shut down all the businesses, we’ve gone into lockdown,'” recalled Provan.
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She then notified her friend and the staff, who were surprised when she showed them the news reports. They then stayed on the water for a while, and that’s when they saw smoke coming from the city, along with the sound of explosions. She said that with the tourists scared and hungry, tensions on the boat were high.
A smaller boat had gone ahead to check the status to see if they could return to the marina and found out that the highway had been completely blocked. Other tourists were transported back to their resorts by smaller boats. Eventually, they got the news that the highway had been cleared, but Provan wasn’t sure what to do: their passports were still back in their accommodation. Eventually, they decided to head back to pick up their passport.
Provan recalled the terrifying ride back, seeing remains of charred vehicles on the highway.
“The highways were completely empty on the way back, but I did start to see a couple of other cars coming from the other direction, and that gave me hope that we were going to be okay,” she said. “And then we got to where the roadblock had been, and it was just a bunch of charred out vehicles, but the fires, they weren’t lit, they weren’t actively on fire, so we were able to cross that area and then get back to Sayulita.”
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Provan and Moon managed to buy some cereal and said that the following day, they decided to stay on the rooftop rather than venture out onto the beach. For now, Provan’s monitoring the situation and ensuring that her information is registered with the Canadians Abroad program, a free service that notifies Canadians of emergencies abroad or personal emergencies at home.
She said that although scary, the experience has changed her perspective.
“One girl was very emotional about whether or not she would have a job because they work on the boat. And it was just a big wake-up call to me, as far as our problems as Westerners are, they’re very minimal, and we really like to maximize them,” she stated.
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Provan was also concerned about workers and staff who couldn’t travel back home or get in touch with their loved ones.
“We live in a country where we don’t have to live in fear each day, and I wasn’t having to worry about whether or not my family was okay,” she said. “And I think it just puts things into perspective.”