As a few might know, I am currently in Mexico on the Yucatan peninsula to be exact, where I am enjoying a reprieve from a Canadian winter. Yesterday morning I took this photo while sitting on my patio which is on the beach. Yes, those are marines carrying automatic rifles! Last month, only fourteen kilometres from the villa, twelve decapitated bodies were discovered. Just down the beach a large bale of drugs had washed up on shore not long before that. These are just a few of the reminders that there is a war on here, a war against drugs and guns.
The military patrols are in evidence everywhere when we travel as we are stopped sometimes as often as three times at different check points manned by the marines.
As we are on the coastline, we also see frequent fly bys of both helicopters and military planes as well as surveillance tours by military boats. Just hours after the marines walked by, this cruiser passed going the opposite direction. Done the lane that parallels the beach, we have patrols of Yucatecan police, the provincial police force drive by in their jeeps.
All of this in the search for drugs and guns. All in all, I feel very safe here in Mexico.
