The first part of this post is copied and pasted from my Intagram account:

Travel Diary Day 20 and 21 – Puerto Vallarta Cartel War. First and foremost I want to say that it was just as scary as you would imagine, for about 12 hours we were in absolute and total survival mode. I learned a lot from a bug out perspective, and made a list of lessons learned that I’ll post on my blog sometime in the next week.. As you can see from my video on the back porch we were in a five bedroom house that basically walked out to a cage in the backyard because most people have bars over their back porch. This was really scary when we received the news that if a demand wasn’t met by the cartel by 5:00 p.m. that they would start burning hotels and houses. We were afraid to be outside and afraid to be inside of our house.

I woke up to the smell of what I thought was trash burning, informed the team I would be coming in to the convention center around lunch to oversee the end of load out, then walked outside to let the dog go potty and saw a smoke on the horizon in every direction. At first I thought maybe there was a forest fire.

We had about 100 people at the convention center for the Crypto Vigilante Summit. I was separated from my husband because he was running the AnarchAwakening retreat. He arrived at the convention center just minutes before cars started to get burned. Literally minutes. After he arrived we had to retreat attendees show up on foot who had to escape a taxi that was lit on fire, they watch their taxi driver get shot. We later found out he survived and was only shot in the shoulder.

We didn’t know how many people were still in town, the event had 742 people there, and we had two summits taking place the weekend immediately after the event ended. I knew many people had left on Saturday, but I had an estimation that three 300 plus of our attendees were still in town.

We began to rapidly take headcounts and find out where everybody was. I’ve heard many stories of what people went through during this terrifying time-period on Sunday. I’m here only to tell mine.

Because the event had just ended, supplies in our home were low. We didn’t have a lot of water so we began boiling water and filling up empty water jugs with tap water. Our car ended up on e, and we could not find an open gas station. On Monday group went out on foot to try and find gasoline. They were pushing a baby stroller of mine with empty water bottles and gas tanks we got from the neighbors.

The first gas station was closed, and the second had been overtaken by the military and turned our people away. They literally tried to sieve gas from a broke down car with a hose, got gasoline in their mouths, but we’re unable to fill up the gas tanks.

We had limited food in the house, but enough to survive a few days. Josie’s nanny Paula made us the best apocalypse breakfast ever, spaghetti, cheese, and egg casserole!

We were very low on GOOD coffee which was a concern for me LOL (I did have travel sized pour over coffee packets, but its not THE GOOD STUFF.

There was a moment when I was outside talking to the neighbors, setting up a Bluetooth mesh Network on our phones, when my daughter tried to come out and follow me and one of my housemates had to raise their voice to prevent her from coming outside where it just simply wasn’t safe yet. She was so sad about this, and I realized I needed to get her out of that environment immediately.

I forgot to mention that when the car got written fire in our neighborhood, I was outside looking at it, on the phone with my husband, and then heard gunshots somewhere very nearby. I had to run inside and I literally pushed my friends and daughter into the bathroom to take cover. I have never had a true fight or flight type experience before in my life.
Overall we stayed very calm, cool, collected. But even after we were able to escape the disaster zone, my nervous system was still on high alert because I felt responsible for hundreds of people in the area.

When we arrived at the hotel I found in San Pancho, I felt like I literally arrived in heaven from hell. It was such a blessing.

Now to get there, I was another story. After 24 hours Uber’s and taxi started to work again. The first Uber I called tried to extort us, he wanted to charge through Uber and extra money on top. He ended up driving away without canceling the ride. I had to pay money to cancel that ride! Next Uber driver said he would only go that far if we paid him cash because gas was hard to find, we agreed to match the Uber price and pay him in cash.
We went from ATM to ATM and none of them had any money.

It was very disoriented and stressful, and now 5 days later while I’m making this post I’m just now starting to get my brain back online for post-production of the event.

We are okay! I did have some survival gear with me, like MMS to clean the water, etc… I did not have a defense weapon like a knife, which I will carry in my checked luggage moving forward. I also packed my bags under stress, and left some things in storage that I should have taken to the bug out location. Overall it was a good trial run for an emergency, I have a lot more to say but I’ll leave it at that for now.

This next section of my blog post is a list I complied based on my brain dump after the experience. It’s not 100% comprehensive, but it does cover a lot of what I feel about.

Bug Out Debrief

Things that Went Well:

1. Grabbed passports and IDs immediately (knew where they were, had them ready).
2. Had cash on hand, grabbed cash before leaving (both USD and pesos).
3. 15 minutes of driving we found an open Oxxo. Their card reader was down. We were able to pay with $100 USD and receive pesos as change (effective currency conversion hack that was previously unknown to me).
4. Refused to overpay first Uber driver (he wanted uber pay plus cash).
5. Secured second Uber at agreed cash price.
6. Protected family resources during crisis.
7. Moved everyone into bathroom quickly during active shooting.
8. Maintained composure under gunfire.
9. Downloaded offline Google Maps BEFORE the crisis began (Do this everywhere you visit or live!).
10. Had everyone in neighborhood and Anarchapulco network download BitChat during crisis (Bluetooth mesh backup).
11. Phone roaming worked.
12. Remembered to pack laptop, chargers, adapters packed when fully bugging out (although I didn’t bring a batter bank on the whole trip! HUGE mistake!)
13. Filled empty jugs with water once threat escalated.
14. Boiled water for drinking.
15. Propane recently filled!
16. Community members supported each other with cash and food and other resources.
17. Did not panic or cry under pressure.
18. Prioritized child’s physical and emotional state when deciding to stay or leave.
19. Waited until roads were passable before evacuating.
20. Recognized safety layout issues of house for future planning (there was only one way in and one way out – VERY scary in a fire or shooting situation!).
21. Successfully relocated north and stabilized outside of the chaos zone.
22. Strong boundary setting under pressure.
23. When we were scared, we prayed. Our fear brought us intimacy and a stronger spiritual bond.
24. When we got to San Pancho, we convened with friends – OUR COMMUNITY – we had eachother and that made life more tolerable.
25. Travelled with (and therefore already had on hand)
    1. Supplements in zipper kit.
    2. Travel coffee pour-overs and travel creamers packets.
    3. Bone broth packets.
    4. Enough granola bars for Josie for entire trip.
    5. Clothing line with clips and detergent sheets.
    6. MMS water purification drops (although these were later confiscated by TSA because I forgot to strategize my bug out packing for the airplane).
    7. Travel kettle (although I left this in storage when I bugged out!)
    8. Laundry detergent sheets (alghtough when we bugged out I put this in a weird spot and we had to buy zote soap at Oxxo to do laundry)

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Things That Could Have Gone Better

1. House was low on drinking water (Anarchapulco had just ended, we needed to refresh of supplies).
2. Car was low on gasoline (Same situation, event just ended we were driving everyone where they needed to go).
3. No fuel minimum rule in place (in the future I will get get gas before I hit 1/2 tank while living out of my normal routine – 1/4 tank at home).
4. Did not have sufficient emergency cash ($300 vs. desired $2,000+).
5. Multiple ATMs encountered without cash.
6. No battery pack on entire trip!!!!!
7. No consolidated rapid-collapse packing system while traveling (I want to design a much ore lean and mean packing system).
8. Husband and I failed to communicate about car gas, house water, etc… before he left for the retreat (he always monitors this, but he had left for the retreat and I wasn’t paying attention to these items).
9. Stayed in property with unsafe lockdown layout (single front exit, caged yard – I’m not sure what the alternative is here, but we couldn’t leave due to no gasoline).
10. Did not pre-evaluate emergency exit options when booking house.
11. Kitchen appliances (kettle) boxed into storage despite ongoing need (this is the travel kettle I left into storage instead of taking with me when I bugged out).
12. Storage decisions made under stress without future-use check (I will make check lists for the future).
13. No emergency power redundancy (charged power banks), no generator, etc….. We did have propane for the stove.
14. Emotional load compounded by simultaneous organizational and maternal responsibility.
15. No firearm available.
16. No quality knife available (I will take a knife and flashlight in my checked luggage moving forward – need a solution for when I travel carry on only).
17. Ran low on activated charcoal just before situation (bring way WAY more next time!).
18. MMS purification drops left in carry on bag and confiscated by TSA.
19. Brought heavy Stanley that spills; inefficient travel choice (next time I will take something light and with a fully closing lid)
20. Bluetooth mesh network not pre-established before crisis (building during the crisis did not work!!!!!!!).
21. No pre-built emergency text message distribution system for rapid mass communication.
22. Need to set up Meshtastic network BEFORE the event rather than during crisis.