If you haven't seen the first part of the story, click on this green stuff and catch up if you want to.
For the rest of you, here's where we left off:
We didn't know it yet, but somehow, despite safety attempts, my friend Katelyn and I were next on the list to be attacked.
Despite the fact that we clearly knew at this point that we needed to be home before sunset, one evening time slipped away from my friend Katelyn and I.
We were at the park and we thought it would be hilarious to try to earn Mexican pesos by being "street performers" like a lot of locals in the park were doing.
We had no street performing skills whatsoever, which made it even funnier to us to try to do.
We just did random things like sing horribly, make up bad raps and poems off of the top of our head and try to tell horrible jokes to passers-by.
Stuff like this happened, but I honestly don't know what "this" is anymore:
Let's just say we had so much fun with our experiment of really awful street performing, that next thing we knew, it was about 8 pm and the sun would be fully down within the hour.
You can even tell in the picture it's getting dark out.
We had to end our fun and money-making endeavors early for safety reasons, and start walking home!
We really didn't think anything of the fact that we'd maybe stayed out a little too late for the sake of 10 measly pesos and some laughs.
The 30-minute walk home was always enjoyable because Katelyn and I could talk so much that the walk would only feel like 2 minutes.
But during this walk, our talks took an unexpected turn.
Katelyn told me she felt like someone was following us, and my first thought was "oh she's just paranoid because of all of the attacks that just happened. Probably no one is following us."
Luckily, immediately after having that thought, I also remembered this incident where I had a gut instinct that something bad was going to happen and I was right.
So we immediately started talking quieter and making our usual turns to see if he would also make the same turns.
He made exactly 5 of the same turns that we did, and at that point, we both knew that wasn't a coincidence- he was definitely following us.
We started whispering frantically to each other "what should we do?"
We didn't have cell phones (this was awhile ago, gosh I sound old) and if he caught up to us, no one would know about it.
But we were still about 4 minutes from our street.
We made a plan that we would keep walking as if we suspected nothing unusual until we were coming upon the last 2 turns of our street.
And then, when we thought we were close enough to make it, we would run.
So that's what we did.
As we neared closer to our homes (we lived across the street from each other each with a different Mexican family), we decided on a count of 3 we'd make a run for it.
Which is a tricky task in places like small cities of Mexico because things aren't necessarily paved and there are lots of pot holes, poles, and random things that could EASILY have you falling on your face in .5 seconds flat if you're not careful enough.
We figured since we'd had at least 3 weeks of practice walking that route, maybe we'd have at least "home court advantage" and be able to avoid some of the trip-ups easier than the guy following us.
As soon as we started running, he began to run too!
I guess the small part of me that still thought we were fine knew then that it was real.
I wasn't REALLY expecting him to actually run after us, but he did, which confirmed the unthinkable.
You never really think that bad things can happen to you until suddenly, they do. It's always "oh, it won't happen to me."
We ran as fast as we could, dodging potholes, bikes parked on the sidewalk blocking the pathway, and piles of dog poop along the way.
We rounded one corner.
And then another.
I glanced over my shoulder and he was just a couple of arm's lengths behind us.
Dang it, now he was closer because I slowed down to look behind me.
Stupid!
But soon after I had that thought, I saw the house where I was staying. Mine was closer than hers, so that's where we both ran to.
As I got even closer, I saw the most glorious and wonderful thing I had ever seen.
😇
The garage door was open to the house because my host family owned an internet cafe that they ran out of the garage.
We ran STRAIGHT through the internet cafe full of local Mexicans who gave us strange looks for storming in through there like a herd of elephants, and into the kitchen.
I don't know why we felt the need to do this, but we both dove right under the kitchen table, and then I peaked up above the table to see where the guy who was following us had gone, while Katelyn just sat on the floor hysterically crying underneath the table.
I have something seriously wrong with me where I'm way too calm in situations like this, so I wasn't crying at all. I was just wondering where the guy had gone.
My host mom came over and asked us what was happening, and Katelyn was crying too much to even explain, so I did all of the talking.
Had my host family not owned the internet cafe, he would have caught up to us. Although I like to think that I would have run into some small convenience store or something but I don't really know.
All I know is the other girls got attacked while they were trying to unlock the gate to their house, and in Mexico, everything is gated.
Our houses both had gates as well.
Thank God for the internet cafe. And as for the other girls, at least they were okay too.
So, even though I said it would never happen to me because I follow the rules, it still almost happened to me.
I will say that if I had paid attention to the time and gone home earlier, that would have never happened.
Don't let a story like this keep you from traveling to places like Mexico, because despite what happened after I got over being too scared to go out, I had some of the most amazing times of my life in Mexico.
I made friends with plenty of locals who were beyond fun, kind people.
They would never hurt a fly and that's true of most Mexicans.
So do I think Mexico is too dangerous to travel to?
No, I don't. In all of these attack incidents, we were all out near sunset, which the locals said not to do.
The rest of my time in Mexico went smoothly and no one on our program had any more incidents. I even went out dancing one night because I became friends with lots of local Mexicans, and I knew I'd be safe in a group/ with them.
I actually went out several nights so long as I was with a group of locals, guys and girls always.
And it was okay. More than okay. We had the best times together!
So as long as you're cautious, you can travel almost anywhere. Just be aware of your surroundings, trust your gut instincts and maybe don't travel to a war zone. But I've definitely gone to places where the official government website said it was unsafe to go, but it was just overhyped.
Use good judgment. Tell people what your plans are before leaving. Walk confidently, even if you're just faking it until you make it.
Danger can happen anywhere. Not just when you travel. In fact, I was followed another time in the US. Not a big city. A place you wouldn't expect it. That story has an unexpected ending I think. Maybe I'll tell it sometime soon.