Callander’s Tom Haley says he and his wife, and another couple are safe and hunkered down in their condo in La Cruz, Mexico.
He says it’s about 30 minutes away from Puerto Vallarta, right across the bay.
Global Affairs issued an advisory on Sunday telling Canadians there to shelter in place after criminal groups set up roadblocks with burned vehicles, warning there have been shootouts with security forces and explosions.
Haley says they were at a Canadian bar watching the Olympic hockey game on Sunday and decided to go to a market after.
“First we heard an explosion, just a loud explosion,” he says. “Everybody looked at each other and said, ‘what was that?’ And then everybody just carried on with their business. As we got down to more of the marina part and you can look out to Puerto Vallarta we could see smoke, billows of black smoke.”
He says they heard some more explosions and after they got back to the condo, they heard from a friend of theirs.
“He was coming from the grocery store, and he was told to get out of that store as quick as he can because within the hour, they figured the cartel was going to come in and start shooting people,” says Haley. “That’s what he told us. They were giving people an hour to get to where they needed to be.”
He adds they’re usually at a resort in Puerto Vallarta but decided to get a condo this year, noting it’s a gated community with security.
“Still to me, other than what’s going on here, it’s probably one of the safest places we’ve been,” says Haley. “We feel ok where we are right now. We’re hunkered down like everyone else.”
He adds they have plenty of water and some meals, but were planning on going out for meals this last week of their vacation.
“Hopefully it’s only going to be a couple days,” he says. “We’re hoping it doesn’t go into a week or anything.”
Haley says they’ll check in with security to see if there’s any updates, noting they’re getting information from social media and it seemed relatively calm overnight.
He says they’re scheduled to come back to Canada on Saturday and is hopeful that will still be the case.
