4 killed, 6 hurt in confrontation between Florida-registered boat, Cuban troops, gov. says <\/a><\/p>\nRaymond Garcia had been in Puerto Vallarta since Thursday with friends when smoke began filling the sky near his hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI received an alert from my hotel talking about stay inside,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Garcia said he went to the rooftop and saw smoke drifting over the city. Video he shared shows dark plumes rising above buildings.<\/p>\n
He later recorded burned cars and buses along roadways as he tried to leave the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was inhaling the smoke. But I was just kind of nervous, like, what\u2019s going on here? What\u2019s going to happen? Just not sure what was going to happen then,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
As he traveled through the area, Garcia said he saw widespread damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw buses, like there was a row, three busses that were burnt. There were cars still burning, businesses that were burnt. So, we were just kind of looking around in shock,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Once flights reopened, Garcia headed to the airport.<\/p>\n
However, delays and cancellations caused him to miss his connection in Dallas, forcing him to stay overnight before continuing home to Tampa. He is expected to land back in Tampa late Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Tampa-based travel agent Cheryll Lilland with Peachy Keen Travel said she had a group scheduled to arrive in Mexico on Monday but canceled their plans after seeing the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say definitely, opt for travel insurance because, even if it\u2019s, a safe environment, you just never know what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Lilland said.<\/p>\n
Lilland also encouraged travelers to plan ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would definitely, suggest booking your transfers to and from the resorts beforehand. And work with a travel agent if you can,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 A quick getaway turned dangerous for a Tampa man vacationing in western Mexico after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[80915,31711,79233,135,137,136,80914],"class_list":{"0":"post-169897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-cartel-leader","9":"tag-puerto-vallarta","10":"tag-raymond-garcia","11":"tag-tampa","12":"tag-tampa-headlines","13":"tag-tampa-news","14":"tag-western-mexico"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}