La Paz to La Paz

As we last left you, we arrived at the Hostel. www.theadventurebrewhostel.com We we looking forward to a little down time…. We planned on doing some bike stuff, riding the Death road and just chilling out for a couple of days….

Both bikes are now making the scruntching noises coming from the rear end. So Sunday we got up and pulled the rear wheel to have a look. All the bearings looked good. The rubber cush drive we suspected up in the mountains is worn a bit, but not very bad and the noise is much too metallic sounding to be rubber on metal. We suspect the chains are failing. Which is surprising because they’re high end RK chains. $200 bucks a piece. Anyway we cleaned them very well with kerosene and then lubed em up. We plan on riding the death road tomorrow so we’ll see how they sound then…

Sunday night we signed up for the Cholitas Wrestling. Its like WWF in the states with all the masks and spandex. Only we had no idea how far out there it would go. It started out like any other wrestling. 2 dudes throwing each other around and out of the ring. Much the same as WWF. The next bout had a dude an a woman going at it. This got a little uncomfortable as it appeared he really was beating on her at times…

Next bout came two women and a midget woman. Ok we thought this is getting a bit strange. They threw each other around and at one time the midget appeared to bite the ref in the groin… The crowd of say half gringos and have bolivians was going nuts’ (pun intended) 

When we arrived at the ring – the guide who came with us told us we could throw things at the ring/performers. They did worn us before the start, that throwing anything hard was likely to result in the object being returned to you in the same manner. We were throwing anything and everything we could get our hands on. Peanuts mostly,  however plastic bottles flew the best and were entering the ring at a surprising rate. 

One of the strangest things was that every so often the “ref” would haul off and punch one of the wrestlers – or kick them or hold them down floor the other wrestler to pound on.

The bouts continued getting stranger and stranger until the last bout we thought we had see it all.

Then…They introduce a double team deal. Two normal looking wrestlers enter the ring. They introduce them, they’re wearing normal outfits with masks and tights. Then they start to introduce their opponents. These two guys come out dressed in outfits that look like butchers. Monster type masks, hunch backs and long over coats. Oh wait what are they carrying?? They each have an esophagus with the stomach and entrails still attached…. For what animal we didn't know nor did we want to know. At first we thought those can’t possibly be real. Can they? Then they paraded around the ring before entering the ring. When they went past us the smell from the “weapons” they were carrying confirmed our worst fears. Yes they were in fact real!! They were also taking bites from them and spitting them into the crowd…..We both ask if each other if we were indeed really seeing this?? Then the match started and they began beating the opponents with them. It was easily the most bizzare thing I have seen in my life…. At some  point they had put down they’re “weapons” and were fighting with the other dudes. At this point late in the “match” a dog comes from nowhere and jumps into the ring because he wants a piece of the guts….He drags it off the ring and the crowd is going crazy. We decided at that point we had see enough and headed for the door. But not before the “fight in the ring” spilled down into the crowd. I’ve got to tell you, it looked pretty damn real at this point.

Like the dudes were really fighting. Throwing chairs at each other and just plain getting it on…. we went back to the hostel feeling a bit off!!

We have a video of this stuff that we’ve been trying to upload but the Internet connection here is very much like the old days of 1200 baud modems – we’ll get it up there sometime.

We did have some serious laughs and enjoyed ourselves – highly recommended - but they could have left out the monsters with the meat!

Cheers!