Luche Libre Wrestling

The Reverend, The White Cat, Danger, and The Bucheneer were just a few of the wrestlers performing last night. The Bucheener was a favorite with young women pulling him into the crowd. Security guards had to dive in and rescue him from the girls trying to souvenir a lock of hair or a drop of sweat. The event went for two hours and each fight finished with the crowd favorites making a miraculous comeback. They fought in the ring, around the ring, up the aisles and sometimes even on the laps of people in the front row of the audience. Some of the moves were so fake that we laughed, some were so realistic that we laughed, but the best were the super athletic flips across the ring, through the ropes, spinning and turning in the air to land on the opponent who had previously been thrown out of the ring. Of course we have photographs of ourselves posed next to short, muscular, sweaty men in bizarre masks.

This excursion was especially organised for us by Horaldo, the bar tender. He is a total party animal: a blessing and a curse. He sings at the top of his voice, whoops it up, eats fried grasshoppers like they are peanuts, and is quite mental. When he feels like ramping up the mood he stands on the bar and pours mezcal or tequila straight down the throats of the patrons. (This is compulsory upon return from the wrestling.)

So, it was a really important lesson when he took us to the wrestling. There were 7 of us in the hostel mini-van, and this is the first time we have seen him be serious. The instructions were: "You are going as a group so stay as a group, a man always walks in the back of the group, stay very close together, don't let anyone push in the middle of the group, keep the young girls really close, if a woman has to go to the toilet a man goes with her and waits, when the wrestling has finished come straight outside and into the waiting van without stopping, and don't pay more than 20 pesos for a beer." All of these instructions, even though we were being delivered door to door and having our tickets purchased for us (on the black market). It was good for all the younger travellers to see this, because while he is a wild man, he takes no risks on the street. The stadium we attended was not the main stadium and attracts a rough more authentic crowd, it is off the beaten track of most tourists. As it turned out, we were the only gringos in the audience, but I think we cheered more than anyone else. I would not have wanted to do this without all the support.

So Mexico is over for us today and we have put a tick on the list of all of the things that we wanted to do. Because Mexico City is what it is and we don't speak Spanish, we have pretty much seen a tourisits version of Mexico, but next time...