Americans kidnapped in Mexico

[Deskgrunt50]

We had a Cancun resort trip planned, which would have been my first trip to Mexico, but it was right in the middle of Omicron and we canceled. We weren't worried about getting sick, but at the time we couldn't risk getting stuck there, as you still needed a negative test to reenter the U.S.

There was some gang **** going on near resorts at the time, which caught our attention. Something about jet skiing to the beach and jumping off and shooting tourists, if I recall. But we didn't plan on leaving the compound.

We went to Costa Rica about 15 years ago... it was getting to be a big destination, but not quite like now. And it was pretty jarring at the time to see armed military personnel around ATMs and that kind of stuff. Don't know what it's like now. We loved that trip. Beautiful country.

 

[garrow]

I spent one uneventful afternoon in Cozumel. That is my total Mexican experience. Though the Trotsky museum in Mexico City sounds interesting.

 

[swingline]

I spent part of a day in Nuevo Laredo with my family in the mid-'70s. After a six- or seven-hour drive to get there, we walked across the bridge. In the river below, giant carp rolled in the shallow water. Loved the street vendors but did not like the Mexican soda. We bought a bunch of stuff, like lamps and **** (I got a mounted set of cattle horns and a leather hat) and carted that stuff back home to Missouri. I was a kid, but I never felt unsafe that day.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Don’t like Mexican Coke? Or the local stuff?

 

[swingline]

It was peach, or something like it. To my 10-year-old self, not good.

And we were a Pepsi family growing up.

 

[Batman]

The Gulf Cartel makes a peace offering by handing over five members it says went rogue, and issues an apology letter.

“The Gulf Cartel, Scorpion Group, strongly condemns the events of last Friday,” the letter continues, referring to a division of the cartel. “For this reason, we decided to hand over those directly involved and responsible for the acts, who at all times acted under their own determination and indiscipline and against the rules in which the [Gulf Cartel] always operates.”

 

[Songbird]

There's a whole Wire thing going on with the cartel "handing over" the rogue rogues.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

It was peach, or something like it. To my 10-year-old self, not good.

And we were a Pepsi family growing up.

Probably Jarritos.

I was talking about how Mexican versions of US cokes use cane sugar instead of corn syrup as sweeteners. Even Pepsi.

 

[WriteThinking]

Isn't there some big ex-pat community down there near Cabo? I remember reading about it years ago and wondering if they had any problems. I assumed it was out of the cartel zones and they dumped enough money into the local economy for people to protect them.

I saw Tom Brady's vacation villa (per our catamaran owner/snorkeling guide), built all by itself into the side of a mountain, surveying all you could see (which was probably everything, in every direction), from the top on a recent five-day getaway cruise to Cabo San Lucas. That's all I got. :)

 

[User 149557]

I have a pretty twisted sense of humor and find “The cartel suspected of kidnapping four Americans in Mexico has issued an alleged apology letter” to be one of the funniest things ever written.

 

[DanOregon]

 

[Slacker]

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

If Pancho Villa had just put pen to paper .....

 

[DanOregon]

And my guess is - that whomever the cartel "handed over" was some low-earner who wasn't making his numbers, rather than the actual person responsible.

And after a few months, a guard will leave a door open and he'll "break out of jail."