On Sunday Feb 22
nd, 2026 we were having a “work
day” in the apartment and working hard planning, blogging, doing paperwork,
booking etc.
We were totally oblivious to what was going on outside, until
our AirBnb landlady sent us a message and suggested that we stay in.
Then we realized, there was absolute silence outside.
The streets were empty. Zero cars and zero pedestrians. It was eerily silent.
It turns out there was a little excitement in the state
of Jalisco. As a matter of fact, throughout Mexico.
There was a Mexican military operation in the nearby town of
Tapalpa and the leader of one of the cartels was killed. In response, cartel members launched widespread retaliatory attacks throughout the state and other parts of Mexico. People were told to shelter in place.
We quickly looked for a recent photo of us together, taken the night before, and posted it on FB and Instagram saying that we were safe and
sound.
The next day we hunkered down in our apartment, again doing computer work. It was
another day of complete silence outside. No traffic and no pedestrians. We went up to our rooftop for a selfie and posted it on FB and Instagram saying that we
were safe.
By Tuesday the shelter in place warnings had been lifted and there were traffic and pedestrians outside. We decided it was best to continue hunkering down, but, ventured outside to go about ½ block to John’s favourite coffee shop. We took a selfie to post.
By Wednesday traffic was back to normal and people we out walking. We ventured a bit further afield to the grocery store nearby. When we got back we posted another selfie taken on our rooftop.
By Thursday everything was life as "usual". We walked into the centro and the city looked like it had not missed a beat. We posted our last day of selfies taken in the centro to
show that our world was back to “normal”.
John and I are not into selfies, but, it gave us an incentive to
work on our selfie-skills. We did have a lot of “out-takes” that went into the delete
pile.
At the end of the day, we felt very fortunate to have a nice bright Airbnb with a rooftop patio to hunker down in and that we had a fridge with (limited) food supplies.
Bottom line, we never felt frightened or unsafe.
Last but not least, many thanks to those people that reached out to check in on us. Your concern was appreciated.
2 comments:
You've had so many experiences on your travels, and this one was exceptional to say the least. I remember seeing your FB posts and thinking how calm and relaxed you both looked.
I had a different eerie experience on 9/11 when the ISA show/conference was closed and driving back to Katy on the I10 with only a handful of cars on the road and flags at half-mast. So unbelievably quiet.
Stay calm and carry on, eh.
Gordon, there was absolutely nothing going on where we were, other than it was eerily quiet. Nobody, literally nobody, on the streets! We knew we weren't leaving for a week and we didn't need to worry about the airport - yet. So it was easy to stay calm. Your experience sounds similar with nobody being around - on I-10!
Post a Comment