Just some thoughts on hitchhiking: I lived in a different region of Mexico for a couple years recently and hitchhiking was very common there. In parts of the world without a lot of wealth cars are considered much more luxury than necessity and people will often hitchhike as a necessity, to get to work etc. It's especially common to see people hopping into the bed of a pickup to get a ride. The main thing though is that (in my experience) hitchhikers in Mexico are pretty much always 1) men or teenage boys if Mexican or 2) backpackers of both genders from the States, Australia, etc who hear that hitchhiking is "safe" in Mexico and do it to save money but mostly for the adventure. Like it seems like a fun, adventurous thing to do that they couldn't do back home, and it kind of feels like being a hippy in the States back in the 60's or 70's when hitchhiking was still somewhat popular. Like living out a Kerouac fantasy. I can totally see a naive (IMO) Chinese girl who loved adventure seeing that local men and possibly backpackers of both genders hitchhiked and choosing that over the (very cheap and efficient!) bus, just for the adventure and story. It's hard for many of us to imagine, but young people often haven't been through enough bad stuff yet to develop caution and self preservation instincts and choose fun over common sense. I wouldn't have hitchhiked alone as a 30-something married woman in Mexico but I very well might have if I'd been younger and less risk-averse and saw others doing it. There is a lot that's strange or hinky about this case but I don't find the hitchhiking to be all that odd. MOO.
