Day 13 - Cholitas Wrestling (La Paz)

Today is my last official day in La Paz and I had something cool planned for later today.

I had a new roomie just for last tonight. Jules from the British Isles checked in to my room in the afternoon and by the time I got back from dinner last night he was already in bed with the lights turned off.

Well, because of an afternoon nap coupled with the fact that I didn’t have to be anywhere early again today, I wasn’t quite ready to go to bed.

So, I grabbed my laptop and wandered down to the common area to watch videos.

By 11:00 I finally stealthfully crawled into bed.

The freezing cold woke me up at 3:30 and then I just couldn’t fall back asleep.

So, the laptop and I made a return trip downstairs and just lay on the couch writing yesterday’s blog and watching videos until 7:00.

By the time I popped back upstairs Jules had already packed everything for his early morning bus.

Comically he hadn’t realized I wasn’t even in the room and did all his packing quietly in the dark.

Anyway, with the room to myself and nowhere to be early, I went back to bed and didn’t wake up until just before 11:00.

What to do? What to do?

As I said, I had something planned for later in the afternoon so it was a question of what do I do for a few hours now?

I seriously contemplated grabbing the cable car to El Alto to visit their Sunday street market that goes on and on but fears of pickpockets swayed me away from it.

The other choice was to just walk back into town and explore some streets I hadn’t gone down yet.

I was so torn on what to do that I was literally standing at a corner on the street where if I went up the hill I’d be at the cable cars but if I turned left down the other street I’d be heading towards downtown.

Finally I decided to scrap going to El Alto and just wander around downtown.

Determined to get street food

Now, usually when I head downtown in the morning my first stop is at The Carrot Tree to grab a nice breakfast.

Today, though, after an epic 10 course meal yesterday, I was determined to just eat street food so instead of stopping at The Carrot Tree, I just walked right by.

Soon after I came upon a little stall selling a few different Bolivian dishes.

For breakfast today, it was Salchipapa which is fries topped with sliced sausage, ketchup, and mayo.

That, along with a bottle of Coke was only 14bs ($3).

Wandering around

After that I just kind of wandered down the streets weaving back and forth trying to find new places I hadn’t seen yet.

I had my eyes keenly open for a street food vendor selling Sonsos which are yuka and cheese snacks but I just couldn’t find any.

I swear to God, I will have a Sonso before my time in Bolivia is up. Of course I only have less than 2 days to find it but I’m gonna try my best.

Anyway, after wandering around for an hour I just headed back to the hostel.

The streets here go from uphill to downhill quite a bit but that last 10 minute stretch to get back to my hostel is a slow and steady incline that wipes me out every time.

By the time I arrived back at the hostel I was huffing and puffing.

Damn, I really gotta get in shape for my next trip.

A quick lunch

So, the event planned for today is going to a Cholitas Wrestling show.

They have shows every Thursday and Sunday and multiple tour companies will come pick you up and transport you to El Alto where the shows take place.

My meeting point was a hostel around the corner from where I’m staying so I left a bit early just so I could grab a quick lunch.

Again, my goal today was street food all day long.

I stopped in a hole in the wall place on the corner right down from my 4:00 meeting point and popped in.

For lunch I had a dish of a quarter chicken, rice, and potatoes. Total was 15bs which is about $3.

Cholitas Wrestling

Okay, so what the hell is Cholitas Wrestling, you may ask.

Well, basically it’s woman wrestling in traditional Bolivian garb.

For $15 I was booked on a Cholitas Wrestling tour. It included both pickup and drop off, pop and popcorn, and a little souvenir to remember the event by.

Our bus of about 20 people loaded up and we were on our way east to El Alto.

It was weird being around all these English speakers. It’s been awhile since I’ve been amongst other tourists.

And, let’s get one thing straight. This Wrestling show is 100% for tourists. The crowd of about 200 people tonight was probably 95% gringo and there were probably only a half dozen kids who were in the crowd.

I took a seat in the front row by a corner post alongside a couple from the UK.

I grabbed my pop and my popcorn and I was ready to be entertained.

The two hour show started at 5:00 and included 4 matches.

I was actually surprised when the first match was men but they were just the opening match as the rest of the show was dominated by the women.

Sure, we all had no idea who we were supposed to route for. I mean who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? In the end the crowd just cheered for everyone.

The first match put on by the men looked like some sort of 6 man battle royale. A couple wrestlers wore masks and one of them was in a full on dog outfit.

Oh, and he won.

Naturally.

The second match was strange. It was a one-on-one match between a woman in blue and a woman in purple with a mask.

Now we assumed that the woman in blue was the hero and that’s who we were supposed to route for and so we chanted her name.

And then the ref got involved by cheating helping our hero.

So, the ref was bad but he was helping our hero?

We were so confused.

Anyway, the villain (or hero??) won.

The third match was another solo match between two women with one of them in a creepy zombie mask who gave off some serious Undertaker vibes.

It was a full on brawl and the left the ring and headed all the way to the top of the bleachers. After the zombie girl threw our hero against a trash bin, she retaliated by throwing the evil zombie down the stairs.

Now, that looked like it hurt.

In fact, every time a wrestler took a bump, you could hear their body slam against a thinly covered wooden floor in the ring.

The last match was the highlight of the night.

It was a tag team match and all 4 of the women were pretty proficient in lucha libre style wrestling. Alot of cool moves in and out of the ring.

The match ended in the ‘ol sterotypical fashion of one partner is accidently pushed into her partner and the partner gets upset and does a heal turn.

You know, wrestling.

By the end, the girl we had happily been chanting Maria to throughout the match was now being booed as she triumphantly held up the mask she had pulled off her partner after attacking her.

By 7:45 we were back in town and I only had one last thing to do in La Paz.

Grab some more street food…