Cholita Wrestling

As I have decided to write my article for next month's magazine issue on cholita wrestling I thought I had better see it in action. So me, Roisin, Helena and Rodrigo headed to the multifunctional centre in El Alto, a city just outside and above La Paz.

We arrived just in time, got our tickets - Rodrigo had to pay the the tourist price like the rest of us even though he lives in La Paz because they thought his ID was fake haha - but the ticket included seats by the ring, popcorn, a drink, a souvenir and 2 bathroom trips so it wasn't too bad.

It wasn't long before the first 2 wrestlers came out into the ring. The first couple of fights were pretty boring. And then came the cholitas...

This was one of the strangest things I have ever seen. The next couple of fights were male wrestlers fighting against the indigenous, female cholitas. And neither held back. The ref usually took the male wrestler's side just to spice things up a little. Most people find the whole thing quite brutal and grotesque, which at points I guess it kind of is,with the man constantly starting on the woman and even thrusting in her face at points. Although to be honest I didn't hate it as much as most as I felt like the cholitas fought back just as hard, if not better!

To end our evening was the cholita vs cholita, one being "good" and the other one "bad". This was definitely the most exciting fight with a lot of fighting outside the ring, cholitas flying over the barriers, fighting bringing down the barriers and water and coke being sprayed over the crowd. At one point I got too absorbed in the fight and found myself making a run away from the baddy cholita, something that Helena has not let me live down...

After getting back to the depo and meeting Sharoll we headed to Zona Sur to Factory, a yummy American diner where I had some fab BBQ sauce and we shared a massive hot chocolate brownie :)