{"id":8567,"date":"2025-12-05T01:35:51","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/?p=8567"},"modified":"2025-12-05T01:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T01:35:51","slug":"downtown-and-moar-interesting-times-and-sicario-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/downtown-and-moar-interesting-times-and-sicario-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown and Moar Interesting Times and “Sicario Stuff”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Greetings and Salutations!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Progreso!
The Yucatan (as you can see)!
Chichen Itza!
Which I unfortunately couldn’t hit. $$$ issues doncha know?
HOWEVER!
Cozumel and it’s ‘stuff’?
No problema.
Payday is overnight tonight.
Either way, the Enfield is going to be raffled off when I get back. I’ll poast pictures up of which on it’ll be. Understand the bore on it is shytte. Damned near shot out but it does<\/strong> fire and is pristine<\/strong>.
Soooo… dinner last night with the Tall Brunette went well…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The food was 5 Star.
The company was about the same, 5 Star as well…

Other than that, I’ll leave it at that, and I’ll poast the touristy sites as my internet is sporadic at best… utterly shitty at worst. Hopefully in Cozumel I’ll be able to get the pics onto the lappie and poast from there. The only pic (besides these two above) was the one I took as I\/We were being taken downtown to check out the scenery:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, the Progreso pier is the worlds longest pier<\/strong> according to all the info I got on the boat, and even the Google agreed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5 Miles long.
With all the security on it (backscatter x-rays and search points) it took almost 30 minutes to get downtown. Once there, We did the slow-exploration, after I pinned the “Evac Point” on my maps. The bus ran every 30 minutes, so getting back to the Boat wasn’t an issue. Since we left early<\/strong>, the town really wasn’t fully open yet, but this was a plus, as we were like the only<\/strong> folks out and about, and it was still cool temperature wise. It got as how as Iraq it felt like as we’re straight up on the equator, and that sun was physically beating down by noon….

Now, the bus was exactly<\/strong> the same model busses we had in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. Chinese made and your basic ‘tour bus’ with seats that were seriously undersized for my Large Western Frame… and add on the pic above?

Those big stones are part of the breakers for the waves that hit the pier… at first, I thought they were HESCO barriers, as they sure as hell LOOK like HESCOs. Between being on the same type of bus, and what appeared to be HESCOs? Yeah, mad flashbacks. In a cool way that is.

For the uninitiated, HESCO barriers were the DotMil answer to a shortage of sandbags and such. They were 5 foot? by 5 foot? (I think) by 5 foot deep metal frames (like a heavy chicken wire but waaaay thicker) and a burlap bag, which was then filled with dirt and rocks to make BIG shrapnel-proof barriers which were then put ALLLLL around various buildings in the Area Of Operations.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Then downtown, we went to what was a bazaar…

Like LITERALLY a just-like-in-Kuwait and baghdad… A souk as the Arabs call them… a roofed over open air market selling everything<\/strong> from hot food to household cleaners to fresh veggies… pics to follow as I said.

I stopped into said Souk\/Bazaar with my companion and we went to a smol cafe… She asked “Why are we eating here? It looks dirty…” To which I pointed out that it, compared to what were obviously<\/strong> tourist oriented places, the fact that it was positively packed<\/strong> with the locals who were obviously getting their ‘eat on’ before they opened their little stalls and\/or businesses, and that was proof enough to me that the chow would be first rate.

And maaaaaan
I was right.
The empanadas were off the chain, and the cokes were ice-cold and REAL Mexican Coke. No chemistry and tasted magnifico…

And was it dirty?
Fuck yeah.
This was Third World Dining at it’s finest…. I was in my element however… “Back in the Saddle” so to speak… Eating in strange local places, keeping my head on a swivel, and being left the fuck alone as I had turned up my ‘vibe’ I was projecting to “lethal” so almost everyone was smiling and friendly, as they sensed it’d be a BAD IDEA<\/strong> to piss off or fuck with the HUUUUGE Gringo and the chick who was with him….

GOD I love doing shit like that!!!
I missed<\/strong> this shit man!

And then, (no pics allowed due to security) I found a Yucatan State Police Checkpoint with a whole crew of cops…

The town was positively crawling<\/strong> with Fuzz… (a good thing<\/strong> IMO) both state and metropolitan… The State Police were something right out of “Sicario”… Ford F-250s with mounted M-240Bs or M249s. I went over and talked to El Sargento in charge, and explained (and showed my ID) that I was a former Soldado americano, and just wanted to talk guns and maybe get a picture or two?

He apologized, but no pics allowed (OPSEC, which I dig what w\/cartel bullshit) but we talked guns… ALL of them were running Sig P226s in low slung cowboy style Blackhawk leg rigs, with M-4A1 (full auto able) and the aforementioned Squad Automatics… I was able to get across that I was an Experto en armas i.e. an armorer and they dug the fuck out of that.

I got to get an up close check of the squad weapons… Their gear was in pretty damned good shape… used but not abused and El Sargento said that on occasion the weapons got a lot of use<\/strong>.

I wish them guys good luck man… they’re on the pointy end Aye? So that was cool. I picked up some tchotchkes for some frens and the usual, and then we went back to the Boat early to hit the pool. Tonight is the Adult Comedy show… I got a taste of the PG side of it last night, but tonight is the Adult Only show… it should be good as the guy was funny AF even tho he was stuck doing a PG version…

So I’m off to meet up with my frens… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Later
Big Country<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Greetings and Salutations! Progreso!The Yucatan (as you can see)!Chichen Itza!Which I unfortunately couldn’t hit. $$$ issues doncha know?HOWEVER!Cozumel and it’s ‘stuff’?No problema.Payday is overnight tonight.Either way, the Enfield is going to be raffled off when I get back. I’ll poast pictures up of which on it’ll be. Understand the bore on it is shytte. Damned … Continue reading “Downtown and Moar Interesting Times and “Sicario Stuff””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8574,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8567\/revisions\/8574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}