MORNING INTERRUPTED, BAD NEW FOR P.V.

It was a lovely cool morning.  I was up early and having my first coffee and cigarette on my balcony.  I was thinking how quiet and peaceful it was here.  No buses, no bus drivers shouting at each other, no drunks, and very few cars at that hour.  I was very happy and at peace and suddenly there was a huge boom.  It sounded like a cannon blast.  Which is quite possible here as every church has a cannon for special occasions (more noise!).  Then huge billows of very black smoke started coming up just a half block away.  More smaller explosions, and it looked like it was coming from the Pharmacy Guadalajara.  The black smoke went on for at least half an hour and I could see flames shooting up that were burning the cables and wires (another reason they should be underground).

I took a few photos, but did not go down to actually photograph the blaze, thinking it was just a store on fire. Little explosions followed like fire crackers.  Then the federalis arrived.  They blocked off the street from cars and pedestrians (probably to prevent anyone from taking pictures).   You may be able to see that one of them is wearing a black terrorist mask.  Some wear those so not to be identified by the "bad guys"  (Mexico is a strange place).   I was going to make my breakfast when I discovered that there were no eggs.  Had the explosion happened an hour later I would have been at the Pharmacy Guadalajara buying milk and eggs.  I decided to go to my favorite coffee shop and have breakfast there.  You can always get the latest news and gossip there (lots of gossip here).

It was then that I found out that V. Carranza was also closed to traffic.  It is the street that comes out from the tunnel and Insurgentes (where the "accident" happened) was also closed which is the end of Highway 200.  This caused an enormous traffic jam with a lot of buses and traffic going down my street.  On the way I passed Clarisse (who helped me with the last of the move).     She had been a half block away and was a witness to the whole event.

She heard the explosion and saw the buring SUV run into a taxi in front of the pharmacy.  She ran over to help (Yes, she is the kind of person who runs toward an explosion, not away from it)  She found a man lying in the parking lot.  He was the taxi driver who happened to have stepped out of his taxi.  He was okay, but very shaken.  She took him inside.  Then all the ammunition in the SUV started exploding.  She then decided the place was not save and dragged the taxi driver out, just as his taxi blew up.  Gasoline was burning all over the street.  They say a car was following the SUV through the tunnel and when they caught up with it threw two grenades at it, and sped off.

The local papers will never tell us what really happened (if they even know).    Rumors are rampant.  The next day the papers said that the driver of the SUV was the Commissioner of Security (obviously not very good at it).  Two bystanders who were across the street were injured by flying shrapnel and of course the driver was killed (not nearly as bad as Colorado a few months ago).  They found the car that threw the grenade within a few blocks from here, but will never know who drove the car or exactly why he killed the commissioner. 

Yes, yes, I know exactly what you are thinking.  Bad things do happen here.  But I still say that the most dangerous thing I will ever do is to drive on the L.A. freeways.  Besides where can you get this kind of excitement?   How many of you have lived a half block from and exploding SUV full of ammunition??  Also included is a photo of what the sunrise looks like from my deck so you can see what a lovely peaceful morning it started out to be and why I still love it here.

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