generalspeaking: Basking In The Sun, Enjoying the Drama

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Basking In The Sun, Enjoying the Drama

"I've never before] been so scared!"
"Staff hustled us into hidden rooms behind the kitchens."
"I'm fine now, barricaded in my hotel room for the night, just trying to decompress."
"All guests and employees told to duck, and we’re all taken to hiding places at Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun Resort. Active shooter? Terrorist or kidnapping threat? They’re not telling us anything."
"Guests are telling me they were playing volleyball on the beach, gunman approached firing guns. Everyone ran from beach and swimming pools. Staff hustled us into hidden rooms behind the kitchens,"
"Other guests told me they heard gunfire. Resort is secluded, was told gunmen came up from the beach. Hotel employees hugging each other."
Mke Sington, retired Hollywood executive

"[The attack is] a serious blow to the development and security of the state ... putting the image of the state at grave risk."
Carlos Joaquin, state Governor

Hotel workers are seen at the entrance to a hotel after two suspected drug gang members were shot dead

People were told to hide inside a Cancún hotel because of an active shooter Reuters

Mexico, highly dependent on tourism, is also now a country where tens of thousands of people die in drug gang shoot-outs, a country where drug cartels are armed to the hilt, and law enforcement has an understated tough time maintaining law and order. But tourists are all right. After all they're cocooned in private hotels, seek the sun on private beaches, are secured by private guards, and can just rest and relax and let the stress of their normal lives just ooze away.

And least that's the thinking of most people who make their reservations and can hardly wait to experience it all. For a while in upscale North American clubs, entertainment while fine dining consisted of Agatha Christie murder mysteries being enacted by actors, to give guests that extra frisson of excitement and the impression of impending danger while they relaxed and enjoyed sumptuous meals in glamorous surroundings. Now they can expect the same on white-sand, hot-sun beaches at Cancun.

A week ago,tourists were doing just that, sipping cocktails while on sunbeds, watching children happily splashing in the ocean and teens playing beach volleyball. Behind them, their luxury hotel on the Caribbean coast of Mexico's shoreline. Idyllic Cancun, what more could anyone want? Oh, entertainment of course, a choreographed shoot-out with people pretending to die and others shooting wildly just pass the tourists.

Damn! if that isn't just what happened. Tourists watched a gang of drug commandos land a boat on shore, another gang arriving from shore in the opposite direction, both firing gunshots at one another. Tourists, naive perhaps, but doubting the authenticity of the event, ran for their lives. Guests of the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun and the Azul Beach Resort were hurriedly and unceremoniously ushered within, ordered to lock all doors and barricade their rooms. What an impromptu piece of entertainment!

Many of the guests decided to extend the thrill by congregating in the hotel lobby while staff attempted to strategize how best to avoid the violent chaos unfolding outside. Now, it is known that a group of 15 balaclava-clad men launched the raid in response to a rival drug gang claiming the Bahia Peempich territory as belonging to them. One drug dealer was killed on the beach, another chased into a hotel and shot dead there.

All of the attackers speedily left the scene by boat and land vehicles. No arrests took place in the immediate aftermath. Two weeks earlier a California travel blogger and a German tourist were killed in a shootout with remarkable similarities to this one. A shooting took place at a streetside eatery with outdoor tables off Tulum's main strip where three other foreign tourists were wounded. On that occasion too, groups operating street-level drug sales shot at one another.

A policewoman was shot to death in October, leading police in Playa del Carmen to stage a massive raid on the beach town's restaurant-lined Quinta Avenida, detaining 26 suspects. In June, two men were shot dead in Tulum, a third wounded, on the beach. Go to Mexico for fun in the sun and unusual scenes of violent drama....