In Mexico, visitors and residents found themselves hunkering down in hotels and other places when the cartel-fueled violence broke out on Sunday.
The authorities had announced that the nation’s most wanted cartel boss had died in a military raid in western state of Jalisco. Soon, roads were blocked by burning cars and flights were canceled.
Here is how some people experienced the events.
Early warning: ‘People were starting to run.’
It was Francesca Ingram’s children who first noticed that the vendors selling beaded bracelets and freshly caught fish at a seaside market north of Puerto Vallarta suddenly began packing up their stalls on Sunday morning.
“It was quite a panic,” said Ms. Ingram, 41, who had been enjoying what was supposed to be the last day of a two-week trip from Barrie, Ontario, with her family. “My son was like, ‘What’s going on?’ People were starting to run.”
As the stalls at La Cruz Market began closing, a local bar invited tourists inside for safety. Ms. Ingram said her group of nine — her family, her brother’s family and their parents — spent three hours there as they tried to call a taxi and investigate other ways to get back to the condo they were renting in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, a seaside village about 15 miles northwest of Puerto Vallarta.
But all the roads were blocked with burning vehicles. Local residents told them it wasn’t safe to walk along the road, either, she said. They eventually decided to make the 90-minute walk back by the shoreline at low tide, which locals had said was the only safe way to return.
Ms. Ingram spoke to The New York Times on Monday by voice memo from her condominium, where she said she could hear explosions outside. Her family had been scheduled to fly back to Canada on Tuesday, but she was notified on Monday that her flight had been canceled and that there would not be another departing flight for eight days.
It’s “extremely concerning,” she said. “There are no grocery stores that are open. We’re not sure about water supply. I’m being totally honest: I’m a little concerned right now about what will happen.”
“The hardest thing,” she added, “is trying to reassure your kids when they’re asking when it is they’re going to be able to go home, and you just don’t have an answer to give them.”
Deep uncertainty: ‘I don’t know if we’re going to get out.’
On Sunday morning, Justen Hires and his wife, Jenna, who were staying in Playa Del Carmen, learned that their flight back home to New Hampshire later that day had been canceled. At first, he said, they thought it was because of the blizzard, but then they heard about the cartel violence.
They booked extra nights to extend their stay at a hotel and as of Monday were working remotely from their rooms. All the restaurants outside were closed, he said, and the town looked mostly deserted.
Mr. Hires, 43, said by phone that he was looking forward to the Thursday flight but that there was no guarantee.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get out on Thursday,” he said.
Shock: ‘We were all crying.’
Amanda Bowers said she knew she, her wife and children wouldn’t make it to their Sunday afternoon flight to San Francisco International Airport when violence had erupted on the roads of Puerto Vallarta.
They could see black plumes of smoke, and the air started to smell like fire, she said, adding that she believed she had heard gunshots.
“We were all crying,” said Ms. Bowers, who lives in Arcata, Calif. “I was worried about everybody’s safety.”
Once they realized there would be some kind of lockdown, she said, they rushed to buy enough bottled water from the hotel gift shop to last them a few days. She tried to comfort her distraught children. They pulled together a go-bag with their passports and other essentials in case they had to make a run for it, she said.
“Today, we’re more kind of resigned, just kind of wanting to be home and not wanting to feel trapped here,” she said by phone on Monday.
Members of her family can move around the resort they’re staying in and use the pool, she said. (People have been warned to stay away from the beach.) But it’s still difficult to keep their small children entertained, she said.
Ms. Bowers said the air quality in the area was poor and the cell service and Wi-Fi were intermittent. Her family rebooked a Thursday flight back home.
“We just feel like we’ve kind of done what we could do, and we’re just hopeful that things are going to go in the direction that we need it to go,” she said. “We’re just trying to sit in gratitude.”
The resort’s staff was also locked down with her family, she said, unable to see their own families. “It’s quite awful for them,” she said.
Heartbreak: ‘This place is very special to me.’
Nick Guillory, 39, woke up on Sunday to dozens of texts from people about the violence in parts of Mexico. He had been planning to go to brunch with friends that morning.
Originally from New York, he rents an apartment in the Zona Romantica neighborhood in Puerto Vallarta. He said he climbed to the roof of his building. There, he said by phone on Monday, he saw 10 to 15 fires burning just blocks away. Gone was the convenience store. And the pharmacy.
“Mexico is my dream country,” he said. “I love it here so much. That’s why I’m here, right? And every day I wake up, and it’s an amazing beautiful magical day. I woke up yesterday and that was not the case.”
Mr. Guillory said he felt heartbroken for the community.
“I feel hopeless and helpless for those people who got their cars burned” he said. “They can’t now go to work, and maybe the business they owned all these years is burned down. That’s what I care about. That’s where my heart was..”
Mr. Guillory said he had enough food in his home for a week but could run out of bottled water soon. He hoped to venture out on Tuesday. “I’m going to have to leave to get water somewhere,” he said. “What else am I supposed to do?”
He said when he first visited Puerto Vallarta in 2023, he knew he wanted to return. He said it felt special to find a place where he be fully accepted as a gay Black man.
“It just filled my whole body, everything — the soul, the community, the nature here, the beach, the food, the culture,” Mr. Guillory said. “I felt a sense of welcomingness that I’ve never really felt in the United States. This place is very special to me.”
“I credit this place with saving my life, because genuinely it has made me a completely different person,” he said.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
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