What do actor Matthew McConaughey and a Sinaloan beauty queen have in common?
They both recently got in a fix south of the border.
In the case of McConaughey, who likes to sprinkle his prose with the phrase “just keep living,” there is a happy ending. The actor writes in his blog that he and a friend went on a road trip and their car broke down somewhere in the middle of the desert in southern Baja California. He thanks an 82-year-old local woman called “Matty” who helped them out. Read more on McConaughey’s blog here.
The story of how Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar, “Our Beauty Sinaloa 2008,” was caught with a stash of firearms and thousands of dollars seems straight out of a Hollywood movie. Zuniga, from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, was detained along with seven men (the exact number seems to vary in news reports) at a military checkpoint in Guadalajara, according to this story in Vanguardia that also has a picture of her.
Zuniga’s reported explanation: They were going to go shopping in Bolivia and Colombia.
**UPDATED INFORMATION on Zuniga’s arrest in this Associated Press story. Los Angeles Times reporter Tracy Wilkinson also writes about Sinaloa’s drug trafficking connections in this story published Dec. 28: “In Sinaloa, the drug trade has infiltrated ‘every corner of life.’ **
YouTube video of Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar – the woman in the yellow dress – from NoroesteTV
Across the border 
That girl was really pretty, but so stupid for hanging out or hooking up with them cartel guys. I am sure she got persued by all the money and power they have. She messed up.
I find it fascinating to learn how people get involved in that world.