Our little narco-event

We had a little narco-event last Friday, involving a military operation in which several (hopefully) key leaders of the local cartel were caught. Cartel members retaliated, with the intent of both sending a message and offering some distraction, with well over a dozen blockades throughout the city and some of the main highways (meaning they hijacked buses, semis, and whatever other vehicles they could get their hands on and set them on fire--very few were hurt or killed, thankfully). There were also some incidents involving grenades, but no one appears to have been injured. The consulate went into lockdown, the phone lines were in and out, and I got my first ride in a "blindado" (an armoured vehicle). The choppers continued circling through the night and following days but things had actually settled down by late afternoon last Friday. While I wouldn't say it's been calm here in GDL, if one actually reads the news and thinks about what the narco-related murder rate must be running these days, we haven't had anything even approaching this scale in quite some time, if ever. News of Chapo sightings have already pushed GDL out of the national news cycle and the international media didn't even really bother, what with the mess in Syria and the ongoing tragedy that is Afghanistan. I wouldn't cancel that vacation to Mexico lindo, by the way. Of the millions of tourists who visit this country each year but a handful find themselves in narco-related problems and with a few tragic exceptions it's not generally by coincidence but you might want to stay away from Los Mochis.