Violence and unrest in Puerto Vallarta as cartel clashes with the military are putting safety and return plans at risk for some travellers, turning to Mexico\u2019s sunshine and shorelines for relief from Edmonton\u2019s winter weather, as fresh snow falls over our city.<\/p>\n
One St. Albert resident who is vacationing an hour away from Puerto Vallarta says locals and tourists are playing it very carefully as the volatile situation continues to unfold.<\/p>\n
\u201cStores were closing, shutters were down, we got to our hotel, and they told us what happened in Puerto Vallarta,\u201d said Stephen Gerencser, vacationing in Sayulita, Mexico.<\/p>\n
Gerencser landed in Mexico on Friday, taking in the sun rays at a beach. On his way back to the hotel, he immediately noticed the normally busy city had quickly emptied out after reports of cartel violence nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor at least four to five hours, we were in full lockdown, and then we realized, and many other people did, that we\u2019re in hotels. We have no food,\u201d said Gerencser.<\/p>\n
Gerencser says one nearby store stayed open, giving people at least one spot to grab supplies until the situation eased up, but he isn\u2019t sure if this affects his flight back home.<\/p>\n
In a statement to CityNews, the Edmonton International Airport said, as of Monday morning, all flights to and from Puerto Vallarta are cancelled.<\/p>\n
The situation is making for a busy day if you\u2019re a travel agent. One agency CityNews spoke to said all their agents are busy trying to get their clients back home.<\/p>\n
One expert says most of their clients already have a new arrangement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all monitoring the situation very closely,\u201d said Rhonda Sveahun, the co-owner of Paull Travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had calls coming from our existing clients that we had booked. Many of our clients are leaving later this week, and some are going to other destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Gerencser, he says at least for now, the typical flow of travellers and locals is slowly getting back to normal.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s scheduled to fly home Friday, barring a delay or cancellation. He\u2019ll keep an eye on its status later in the week, but for now, he\u2019s soaking up the sunshine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bistros are open. Stores are open. It\u2019s pretty much optimistically moving forward and enjoying the time we have,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Violence and unrest in Puerto Vallarta as cartel clashes with the military are putting safety and return plans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-495369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}