Saskatchewan man avoids cartel violence during vacation to Mexico

Jason Gaboury, his wife and some friends were on vacation in Mazatlan last week when cartel violence broke out.

Fighting started after alleged drug trafficker Ovidio Guzman — a son of former cartel boss Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman – was arrested.

Speaking with Gormley on Monday, Gaboury said they only heard a few rumblings while on the resort, but later Thursday when they headed off the resort to watch Team Canada in the world junior hockey championship, they noticed something was amiss.

“There were little to no people on the beach and then as we started getting into the area with a few shops and restaurants, they were all closed,” said Gaboury.

When his group got to the restaurant they had been planning to go to, they found it was also closed. It was ultimately a cab driver who filled them in about what was going on — and found them a new place to go.

“We didn’t know what we would do, but the cab driver said, ‘I know a place. There’s a bunch of Canadians there. We’ll take you (and) you can watch the game there,’ ” said Gaboury.

He said they didn’t really know the gravity of the situation so they went along. On the way, the streets were quiet except for a gas station they passed.

“There were a couple army vehicles there (and) lots of military guys. And the cab driver pointed out to us, ‘Yeah, just in case the cartel guys come needing gas, they’re ready for them,’ ” he said.

They continued on to the little bar with a lot of other Canadians there to watch the game, but once overtime hit, Gaboury said they decided to head back to the resort.

“They had chained off the restaurant. They weren’t letting any more people in and we decided, ‘You know what? Maybe we should go home,’ ” he said.

Once they got back to the resort, they found out a bit more of what was happening, but they didn’t see any signs of violence themselves.

“Most of the locals we talked to, even the day after, told us there was really no violence in Mazatlan itself and we felt perfectly safe on our resort,” explained Gaboury.

They did notice the resort was a bit understaffed as some workers weren’t able to make it in.

There were some threats made to airports in the area and Gaboury said their flight for the next day was cancelled, but they were rebooked and made it home to Spiritwood on Sunday.