Cholita wrestling!

19^th September

     Again we woke up late and chilled out watching TV and reading up on the next part of our travels. Neil and I had decided that today what we wanted to do was go to Cholita Wrestling which from what we heard from other people while travelling is it is mad, great, horrible, mental, not worth it and worth it. So with out love for crazy and wacky things we got the tickets for the Wrestling cheap at £8 each which include travel, entry, snack, souvenir and toilet passes!!!

     We got picked up from our hotel with a English Speaking Guide who had really long black hair, nails filed into a point and wearing a Metal T-shirt (Neil tells me it was a Megadeth t-shirt)...I thought really and Neil thought COOL! He took us to our bus which was so cramped even my legs didn't fit into the seats so you can imagine how Neil felt. We were given out tickets which were great...see pic...the cartoons are great and it reminded me that we were also seeing women wrestle. The journey took us through the city and we picked up more tourists on the way. The wrestling is out of town and we saw some amazing views of the city again, the guide and river let us get off an take some pictures hopefully this will explain what this looks like …..

The tickets...

The view from the hill - La Paz below

     We then go on and after a few more minutes arrived at the Wrestling, it was busy outside, full of people, music, snack bars, drink stands and just seeming full of energy. The guide told us a few rules of the place before we entered 2 of these being you can't throw things at the wrestlers and not alcohol in the venue, it was a shame but we thought ok.

     We went in and took our 'front row seats'. There was a fight going on as we got in – just what we were expecting really, typical 'entertainment' wrestling – a couple of masked men rolling around in the ring. We decided then to buy some masks for ourselves. It finished and we went to get our 'snack and souvenir' during the break. We got a packet of popcorn, a cup of coke, a postcard, some stickers and a tiny model 'cholita'. Next fight was 'The Prisoner' versus 'The Masked Fatman'. I may be making some of these names up as I didn't exactly understand the commentator. More hilarious brutality ensued. The crowd seemed to have a mixture of responses to the fights. It was mainly a family crowd so lots of little kids running around, especially climbing through the gaps in the fence to get closer to the wrestlers, but also there were groups of bowler hatted women, taking things very seriously, shouting quite angrily at the bad referee etc etc.

     Next fight was 'The Ninja' (this was actually his real name (by real, obviously I mean his stage name)) and he was fighting a woman. Most of the women don't have any kind of costume so I couldn't assign them funny names. This fight was a lot of fun, obviously The Ninja was beaten at the end.

     More fights came, we got to 'The Camp Man', 'The General', 'The Clown' – the kids loved The Clown, we bought a mask each, one section of the audience got very excited and started throwing hats and food at them. The General loved this and repeatedly tore up their hats before throwing them back. The fights started to end up in the crowd more and more often. There was a particularly good one with two women against The Camp Man and The Football Guy. The audience had started to throw oranges at the wrestlers so they started rubbing the oranges into the womens' eyes.

     The big fight of the night was 'Jenny', a very popular female wrestler against 'The Executioner' – the usual brutal beatings, throwing out the ring, oranges rubbed in eyes etc before Jenny managed to win the day.

     My view on the wrestling was it was GREAT!!! The atmosphere, lights, shoddy building with holes in, the bed sheet hung as the impressive doorway that they use to introduce the wrestlers, the music used (eye of the tiger a lot) and the fact the music got stuck all the time, children running in the ring during the fight and at the end, the masks people wear, the hats, ballons and throwing stuff at the wrestlers and orange juice in the wrestlers eyes was all amazing. I sat there feeling like I was half in a panto but also thinking this is what WWF is like in USA.

     I was photograper that day and videoed some of every fight, hopefully you will click on the links and see what we took. I went through various emotions these being amazement, laughing hysterically, shocked (when the women fight and kick ass with the men) and slightly scared and angry when the men beat up the women a bit too much!!!! However what I learnt from the whole experience was when I grow older I want to be a Bolivian Women Wrestler!!!!!

Big thank you to Mita, Iain, Hope and Ray for their wedding gift as their contribution went to this great entertainment. 

Click the link below for the photos

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=232945&id=547011402&l=74e43a52c2

Curries and Cocktails

17^th September

We arrived in La Paz after 12 and the view driving into the town was amazing. La Paz is built over 15 hills at around 3600meters high. When you drive in from the mountains you get a view of the city sitting in the valley and it is stunning. It also looks bigger then any place we have seen in Boliva so far.

We got a cab (cheap) and check into our hotel called Cruz de la Andes it is an ok place with Wi Fi, private bathroom but not heating...hey you can't have it all. We were given a room on the 4^th floor with a balcony..that's nice but Neil doesn't go to near the edge and there is no lift so climbing 4 flights of stairs in high altitude is the way to go. We chilled out, cleaned up, watch some cable TV in english and then decided on what to do that evening.

We didnt need to discuss it long as one of the reasons for heading here was for the British owned Indian Resturant Star Of India.....it is in the lonely planet guide and it has been 4 weeks and 5 days since I had something remotely spicy. So we headed there for dinner, the walk, though short, was hard work as every where there is a hill to climb. City is busy, cosmopolitan, lots of gringo's, shops, cafes, restaurants etc. The Indian was pretty full when we arrived, bollywood music playing, indian fabric on walls, pictures of Buddha (?) and the Queen. We looked at the menu, though pricey, it was worth it. We had starters of poppadams and chutneys, pakora (not really so good more like a corn pancake) and vegtable somosa's (again tasty but really spicy veg saltinas..a Bolivian pasty). We had beer...you can't have beer without a curry...espeiclally on a Friday night. For main we had Chicken Madras, Nan, Rice and I hasf the special which was a lamb Briyani (fist bit of lamb since we left the uk) and Chappati. The breads were not great and did not look like what I would call Naan but the curry and briyani were great. Me and Neil ate so much we were stuffed.

We headed out and went walking (uphill!!!) to have a look around and bumped into tour buddies Kate and Lizzy and they said they were meeting Maria and Michael from the trip in a bar, we were going to go but were not sure where it was, they showed us a map and we said we would meet them in a hour or so. We went to the Blue Note Cafe where cocktails are said to be good and met them all there for chats about our travels, where we are going next, backpacking in Oz, the killings in Oz a few years back and the film based on it called Wolf Creek...Kate was not amused as she seemed quite scared by the factual details. We had a variety fo cocktails and late into the night we headed home. It was really nice to go out on a Friday with friends and go drinking...we felt slighty normal again.

18^th September

It is mine and Neil's 2 year and 8 month anniversary (yes we celebrate monthly...sad I know) and so we slept in till really late (it was the first proper bed and sleep since before the tour) and then headed out for a walk and for drinks and dinner, We went to a place in the guide, the drinks and food were expensive but we treated ourselves with cocktails and microbeer, the place was too smoky so we left...That is right in Bolivia you can smoke in places. We then headed to yes the Curry House again where we had beers, saw a group of boys from Oz not finish the Ultimate Vindaloo (appartently the hottest one around and you get a free t-shirt at the end!) we this time had Ilama Kebabs..which were fantastic...we love Ilama and then a Sag Aloo Paneer and a Lamb Rogan Josh with rice and Naan which was nice...we are getting our Indian fill while we can. We then headed to a place called Olivers Travellers which is a British Bar..they show football, have cocktails, do a british breakfast with Linconshire sausages and all the british classics. It was expensive and loud with leary brits getting drunk...which is ok but both me and Neil didn't enjoy it that much so after a few drinks we left and it was late so we headed home for the night.