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Published: August 24th 2011
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The things that your correspondent has to go through in order to keep you dear readers happy. This, I think, was predestined. At first, my wife and I were going to miss this event, but because of one thing or another, we stayed a few more days in La Paz, including a Sunday.
Now, I had heard of this event through various travellers and with the aid of paper and ink, had read that it did take place. Solely in the interests of gathering information, your correspondent agreed to buy a ticket and go to see for himself what took place on these Sunday evenings.
To get there we, and many others, used a bus. A fine mode of transport to get from one place to another, unless it is not going to the place where you want to – then it is commonplace to get off the bus you are on and get on another that is hopefully going the direction you want it to. In Bolivia, this is not always as simple as it sounds as I am convinced that some drivers will change direction based on the number of passengers asking for a particular stop.
Anyway, I digress.
We knew roughly where we were going, but the bus started weaving and winding it’s way around the backstreets of La Paz. With 30 people on board, the thought of a mass kidnapping did cross my mind, but the detour was solely to avoid paying the toll on the main road. The bus did stop for passengers to take photographs of the valley with the city in it. Then off we went again.
I cannot keep it from you any longer. Even I am feeling the suspense and intrigue that I am building up and have had to turn to beer for comfort. The delay is over dear readers. I will finally reveal that I had paid money to go and see ………….
GRANNY WRESTLING !!!!!!
Yes, the truth is painful.
It was held in an area of town called El Alto. For those not familiar with this neighbourhood, think of the fifth level of hell and you will get the general feel. Our bus parked outside the venue and under heavily armed guards and helicopters ( well, we walked quickly to the door), we made it safely to the venue holding
the arena. It seemed to be an old community hall with a wrestling ring in the middle. We gringos were sat around the ring, while the locals sat on rows of chairs further back on portable grandstands. “Great seats“ we thought, but later events made us rue those words.
As well as allowing us entry, our tickets also entitled us to a free snack (popcorn and the smallest plastic cup ok coke in the world) , a return pass for the bus (quite helpful I felt ) , a free souvenir ( a postcard and a small pencil top of a wrestling granny) and , best of all, and I jest not, two admissions to the toilet for the evening. I have no idea what happens if you felt the need more than that.
The place was full, with the locals making as much noise as el gringos. There were seven bouts of wrestling starting from the embarrassingly bad – we could hear the wrestlers telling each other what move to do next and at one point when one of them wasn’t thrown hard enough to leave the ring, he dragged himself across the canvass and threw himself
out to a semi-professional appearance. The Grannies only appeared three times and were really women in their mid twenties to early thirties.
I won’t bore you with details of all the fights. Only two are worth mentioning. We all had to sit behind yellow, steel railings and when a wrestler appeared we all clapped and cheered. On one of the occasions that a cholita (granny) walked in to do battle, she walked past me, stopped, pointed to her cheek – demanding I kissed her. Well, what could I do. I stood up to cheers from the crowd and planted a peck on her cheek and off she went. “Thankfully that is the end of my participation” I happily thought, but no….
During the bout, she was dumped heavily on her rather Rubenesque backside. The crowd all felt the pain as she landed. So, what did she do? Did she fight on through the pain – no. Did she say that she was too injured to carry on – no. Did she climb out the ring, walk over to me , turn round and demand I massaged her rear better – yes. The place went wild as I turned
a shade of red that has not even been created yet. Her flirting contined a few moments later, when she picked up the guy she was fighting ( she were a big lass), carried him out of the ring and threw him over the steel railings on top of us. Thankfully, in situations like these I always carry a small puppy or kitten as a suitable replacement, so avoiding any painful injuries.
The last bout was between a werewolf and someone dressed like Jason from the horror movies. They started battling in the ring, but that was too boring, Instead they fought out of the ring right in front of us. Just hitting each other was not enough, so they started to dismantle the steel railings and hammered each other with those. Eventually Jason had beaten the werewolf to the floor and was piling more and more railings on top of him. We were now just sat with no protection form the carnage as all the railings from our side were on top of the unfortunate guy in the wolf suit. At that point, with him still lying under seven tonnes of steel, the lights went up, we all
filed out leaving him there.
Look up this site for all the proof:
www.cholitaswrestling.com
am sure it is all real !!
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Taffy
non-member comment
Cholitas wrestling
Well I guess it beats going to the bingo every saturday! Love Taffy