Aaron Payzant and Logan Howard pulled off the highway onto a dirt road in Tabasco, in southeastern Mexico. They were looking for exotic birds to photograph, but ended up finding an armed group. It is February 2020 and the couple of youtubers on trips see in the rear view mirror of their car that a truck pick up White is rushing toward them. “They’re making me nervous,” mutters Howard, who is behind the wheel. In seconds, the truck reaches them and blocks their way. “They have weapons! God! ”Says the driver as the group of men with rifles surrounds them.
The moment was recorded on a camera installed inside the car and has been published on his YouTube channel this week. Payzant and Howard explained that they had embarked on a journey through Mexico to see the most famous natural sites in the country. On his Facebook there was a record of his visits to Las Coloradas, in Yucatán; the Popocatépetl volcano, in Puebla; and the sanctuary of the monarch butterflies, in Michoacán. However, the trip was suspended after the incident with the armed group.
“Are they lost or what fart?” One of the men is heard asking Americans who panic when they see the rifles. In a mixture of English and Spanish, the young people explain that they are tourists and that they are taking pictures of nature. “Please don’t kill us,” says one of them on the verge of tears. One of the hit men who speaks a little English asks the couple to calm down. “Calm down güero, nothing happens!” He insists. The hit men explain to the Americans that they must not loiter in these lands and order them to return to the highway immediately.
Payzant and Howard have acknowledged that taking the road trip in Mexico was unwise, but that they would return to the country in safer circumstances. “I thought ‘they are letting us go, they can change their mind at any moment, we have to go’, it was not the time to play,” explains Payzant after posting the video a year later. The United States embassy has a permanent alert for its citizens in which it recognizes that in the country it is common to be exposed to crime, for which it recommends that Americans “not travel alone, especially in remote areas.”
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