I have a blog on my website EverythingCozumel.com that details a drive we made from the US to Honduras and back. Below is what would have been the last entry, but I never posted it.
I guess it just wasnt our time to die. Was it the extra cup of coffee this morning? The stop we made to top off the gas tank when I really didnt need to? Whatever it was, something put us at that place in the road, at that time, and not one minute sooner. We were about two hours north of Tampico, at kilometer 185, just north of Soto la Marina. The day was sunny. The visibility and road conditions were excellent. We were on a new patch of two-lane highway where the asphalt was still fresh. My wife had just commented on how much road work they had done since we were by here a little over two months ago, when I saw a slow-moving truck up ahead. The speed limit was 110 KMPH (66MPH) and I was doing about 75MPH.The truck looked like he was stopping right in the middle of the road, so I pulled out to pass him and was confronted with one of those quick-decision times that come up so often while driving in Mexico.
There looked to be several cars parked in the road ahead, or maybe an accident.I chose to continue my passing maneuver. I went around the truck and back into the northbound lane, when I realized the cars werent parked or wrecked; nothing about them looked right. I zipped right through the small opening between the three cars on the left and another car on the right. They were all four burning, but not wrecked. Oddly, there was no black smoke, only thin wisps of white, which was hard to see against the blue sky. I was concentrating on my path on the road, and not the scene, but what I saw next burned itself into my retinas.
What the hell was that? I asked my wife.
Her reply was clear. Her voice stressed, but under-control:
They are all decapitated.
On both sides of the road, in piles next to the cars, were stacks of nude, decapitated bodies, heaped up like so much meat. Their heads lay in the road nearby, tossed aside like broken melons.
I stepped on the accelerator, now doing about 80, when we came up another car, this one not burned, but riddled with bullet holes. Hundreds of bullet holes. It laid nose-first in the ditch, with all four doors open. I slammed on my brakes and said I was turning around.
To go where? my wife asked.
Back where we came from. Who knows whats farther ahead.
I pulled a U-turn in the middle of the highway and passed back through the carnage.A kilometer past the pile of bodies, I pulled over.
What do you think? I asked. Go back to town? Look for the police? Ask for an escort? Turn back around and just head as fast as we can for the border?
I dont know.
If we go look for the police, they may or may not help. They may even be involved.
Right.
If we run for the border, we may run into the guys that did this.They may still be at it.
Right.
Just then, a Mexican Highway Department road-work truck and an accompanying pick-up drove by us, unwittingly headed towards the scene.
Lets follow them at a distance. If they get through and keep going, well go on following. If something happens to them, well U-turn and run back.
OK.
We pulled another U-turn and began following the two trucks at a distance. Unfortunately, as we got closer to the scene, they began to slow down. About two hundred feet from the carnage they stopped in the middle of the road.I could tell what was going on: The lead truck saw what had happened and didnt want to go further, but the following truck couldnt see and was confused by the sudden stop.
I dont want to stop here, I said. I want to make a run for it.
Agreed.
With that, I hit the accelerator and whizzed by the two trucks, threading my way past the burning cars and headless bodies once more, this time at about 80MPH. We passed the car in the ditch to the left, and my wife said the doors were all open, like the people had tried to run. Or, I said, like the Zetas opened the doors to make sure the passengers were all good and dead. It was clear what had happened. The Zetas had lain in ambush and when their prey had passed, they opened fire. The four bullet-ridden cars had come to a stop in the middle of the road. The passengers were all removed, stripped and beheaded. The cars were then set on fire. As this was happening, a carload of innocent passersby came driving down from the north and the Zetas opened fire on them, following their long-standing modus operandi of leave no witnesses.
We were doing about 85MPH and were about a mile from the scene, when we came upon a pick-up truck stopped in the road, pointed south, doors askew, windshield bullet-ridden, a headless body in the drivers seat and more headless bodies lying all around. I upped it to 90MPH.
A little farther on, we saw a four-door crew-cab pick-up, doors open, nose down in the ditch. I ouldnt see what kind of other damage it had sustained, but it had certainly crashed. Still farther along, we began to see clothes, hats, shoes and miscellaneous personal belongings scattered along the highway, all looking like they had just been dumped; none looking like they had been run over or had been sitting there very long.
It was another few minutes before the first car passed us going in the other direction. Then another. Then I felt we were OK, the Zetas were no longer ahead or behind. They had done their business and now were gone. I kept it at 90 for the next twenty miles, until we hit the highway that goes from Matamoros to Ciudad Victoria. Ironically, we had chosen to avoid that section of highway because it had such a bad reputation for just this sort of thing. Likewise, our theory of leaving in the early morning (as being safer) was soundly dashed. Really, it all boils down to whether its your time or not. Thankfully, it wasnt ours today.
