Smoke, empty streets and cars and stores on fire made for an “eerie” scene as Jolene Kerslake of Kitchener, Ont., moved through the streets of Puerto Vallarta on Sunday afternoon.

Kerslake says she was at a local bar in the Mexican city to watch the Olympic hockey game Sunday morning and when they went to leave they were told to get back inside.

“We could see the smoke and hear the bang and it literally was about 500 meters away from us. And all you saw was smoke and you heard gunshots. You heard bangs,” Kerslake told CBC News as she sheltered her friend’s condo.

She says they rushed to go back inside and remained in the bar for five hours before they were released.

“We were basically told to go straight to our destination,” she said.

“We had to basically walk through the war zone to get to our condos, which I still am not at my condo. I have not been able to make it there. Basically, we walked through helicopters, cars burning, convenience stores on fire, chaos.”

Violence after death of ‘El Mencho’

The violence Kerslake describes happened after the Mexican government killed drug cartel leader Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” on Sunday. Oseguera Cervantes led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a group notorious for drug trafficking and attacking Mexican officials.

Oseguera Cervantes led to violence in Mexico, with gunmen blocking highways and setting fires in several cities. 

People were told to shelter-in-place and Global Affairs Canada advised people to exercise a high degree of caution if they are in Mexico.

Flights were cancelled in to and out of Puerto Vallarta although some flights are expected to resume on Tuesday. 

Air Canada, for example, said on X it will “resume full operations” from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to Puerto Vallarta on Tuesday, and will be flying larger planes for additional capacity. The airline will resume flights from Toronto to Guadalajara on Wednesday.

‘Nobody is out and about’

Kerslake said Monday morning, it was a “somber” scene outside the place where she’s staying.

“There’s a lot of smoke, you see a lot of clean up happening. A lot of people are indoors. Nobody is out and about as we’ve been told not to be,” she said. “It’s just a very eerie moment.”

Donna Pasnyk of Kitchener is in Nuevo Nayarit, just outside Puerto Vallarta, on vacation with Marsha Colbourne of Orangeville.

Pasnyk says they’re in a residential area and they were by the pool when they saw thick, black smoke in the air on Sunday.

“We came into our place and all our phones were going bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Everybody’s wanting to know if we’re all right from home,” Pasnyk said.

“We really didn’t know what was going on. We came in and we learned about the killing of the drug cartel leader and all the fires in Puerto Vallarta.”

Colbourne says they still weren’t getting a lot of information later in the day on Monday.

“We don’t have any direction of what to do. Just stay here. It’s very, very quiet,” she said.

Black smoke and a ‘big boom’

Ian Graham of Kitchener is in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, a village about 30 km north of Puerto Vallarta. He says he, too, was watching the hockey game Sunday morning and afterwards went to a rooftop terrace.

“We had already started seeing black smoke over in Puerto Vallarta. And then we heard this big boom,” he recalled.

“Then next thing you know, we heard more big booms and the entrances to La Cruz, the road basically, we could see black smoke in different areas of the entrances and exits of La Cruz.”

Graham says he’s been visiting the area since 1991 and has never experienced this kind of violence before.

“This cartel is not one of those things where it’s always apparent and open and obvious,” he said.

Kristian Bulka of Kitchener arrived in Puerto Vallarta with his girlfriend last week and they are staying in a resort in the tourist town. They went to a bar in town to watch the hockey game and he says there were lots of other tourists in the area.

“The bar was packed with Canadians and Americans overall, lots of tourists. And then I want to say probably towards the end of the first period or even the intermission break, we started smelling a lot of smoke in the air and started seeing the smoke,” Bulka said.

As they left the bar to see what was happening, he says they saw homes and vehicles on fire. 

He says they witnessed “one of the cartel guys who basically forced the people out of the car, parked the car in the middle of the road and then lit it on fire.”

Local bar owners ‘best people ever’

Bulka says people started to realize this was “a really, really serious situation” and the bar closed its doors and kept people inside until mid-afternoon.

“The locals who are running the bar … thank God for them. The best people ever to keep us there and keep us fed, give us strength,” Bulka said. “I can’t even explain the gratitude that we have for them.”

Eventually they were able to leave the bar to go to the apartment of someone they knew in the area. They walked by burned out buses and saw military vehicles on the streets and helicopters overhead during the 40-minute walk. They stayed at the apartment until they felt it was safe to go back to the resort.

The locals have never gone through this either, right? Like everyone was in camaraderie together.–

It was unclear whether Bulka and his girlfriend would be able to fly home on Tuesday as planned.

“I was in fear and it was scary and everyone I was around was scared. But I just want to reiterate the fact … the locals have never gone through this either, right? Like everyone was in camaraderie together,” he said.

“The people of Puerto Vallarta, amazing people and [and I’m] so thankful for everyone who was willing to help out.”