The one, the only, the Lucha Libre

When people think of Mexican entertainment, a few things probably come to mind: men with trumpets dressed in funny sparkly suits, the grotesque donkey show, bullfighting or the Lucha Libre. I'm here to tell you about the latter.

For some foreigners living in Mexico, the Lucha Libre is kind of like a rite of passage. It's not something that you're necessarily interested in, but it's something that most everyone has seen at least once. And who doesn't want to see a bunch of grown men in spandex fake-fighting for an hour?

A few Friday nights ago I had the chance to attend a match with some super-fanatics, so I thought, 'why not?'

We sat up in the cheap seats inside the gigantic stadium not too far from my apartment. A spot on the sticky stone benches costs a mere 25 pesos (two bucks, roughly), although a 32 oz cup of warm keg beer costs 50 pesos. While our balcony seats where less than halfway filled, the bottom seats closest to the stage were completely packed, with screaming fans going wild for the borderline-homoerotic wrestlers. The best part for me was the live horn band that played during pivotal points or after "victories" on the stage. It's like the Mexican equivalent to our prerecorded scoreboard music that randomly evokes cheers of "CHARGE!" from the audience.

The night was divided into three fights and a succession of various rounds. I didn't actually understand what was going on so my details are going to be a bit fuzzy on this. What I do know is that the wrestlers each fulfilled very particular stereotypes, and I'm not even talking about the midget they stuffed into a blue gorilla costume who waddled on stage at various points.

The "best" wrestler, according to my posse of experts, is the openly gay fighter Máximo who donned a hot-pink mohawk and a sassy little Spartan costume made of purple shiny pleather with dangerously short pleats. I think the mini gorilla was his helper, or something. His preferred wrestling move was to kiss his opponents on the lips, which sent them flying dramatically backwards and left them wiping their lips in a panic for at least five minutes.

There were also a pair of Tejanos, or Texans, who dressed in tight white spandex cowboy costumes, with bull's horns placed appropriately over the crotch. I believe their weapon of choice was a whip. Black Warrior, naturally, was a black wrestler with dreads tied back in a Rasta-esque wrap. A Japanese wrestler with an appropriate karate headband bowed emphatically to his opponents before each fight. They mockingly bowed back after they kicked his butt.

A whole slew of other wrestlers appeared on stage, some wearing nothing more than neon green Speedos. Most wore the traditional Lucha Libre spandex face mask with little holes cut out for the eyes and mouth, and of which hundreds of replicas where available from street vendors outside the stadium. During each round, super sexy dancers came out to shake awkwardly back and forth for the Jumbotron.

Everyone's fighting was just as overblown and clearly fake as in WWF matches, but everyone loved it and clearly wanted more. And maybe I do too.



[Máximo in action!]

A Failed Experiment in Camping

Last weekend I learned that an adventurous spirit isn’t always enough to overcome a lack of preparation. And while Saturday night was certainly one of those “makes a good story” moments, I’m still genuinely scarred by the events that unfolded.

[This story is 1,100 words long. Enjoy].

When Laura proposed a camping trip, I suggested Parque Nacional El Chico, a huge “eco” reserve (albeit littered with chip bags and beer bottles) about 2-3 hours north of Mexico City and just outside the town of Pachuca. None of us knew much about the place, but it’s usually enough to have the general concept down and ask as you go.

After rallying the troops, including Matt, Paul and Enzué, we hopped aboard a “direct” bus (that made various stops) for less than five dollars apiece. Reaching Pachuca, we hopped on a “combi,” one of those ubiquitous 15-passenger vans produced sometime in the 1970s, heading towards the park. We didn’t know quite what to tell our driver, just that we wanted to camp for the night inside El Chico. My guidebooks and Google searches had all been a bit vague as to names and locations, so when the driver suggested the Las Ventanas campsite, it sounded as good as any.

He dropped us off inside a “reserve” complete with a half-empty pond, numerous Mexican weekenders and several wood stalls where women brought in Tupperware containers filled with tasty fillings for tacos, which they heated on large hot plates in the back. We hiked up a bit past the open field and into the woods, the enormously tall trees and thick scrub a promising shelter from tent robbers and the strong winds. The altitude at El Chico isn’t that much higher than in Mexico City, but the clouds were so low you could see them fly past and nearly scrape the ground.

We pitched our tents and explored the neighboring forest, but since we’d arrived around 5 p.m. and there was little to do, we mostly just waited for the sun to set so Sunday could come sooner. Things got cold and damp pretty fast, and it soon became evident that the thin flannel sheets Matt and I had brought in place of sleeping bags was a poor choice. It was an incredibly stupid, horrible, death-defying choice, we would learn a little later.

The leaves, sticks, logs and littered paper were all too damp to start a fire, so after the sun had mostly set, we stood around in a circle eating the food we’d brought: pre-toasted bread slices, plastic-wrapped slices of cheese and baked tortilla discs.

By 8:30 we’d tired of our amazingly bland feast and retired to our tents. I’d brought my yoga mat and we set down our raincoats and one of the blankets on the ground, but the earth was still tough and damp. Laying the far-too-breathable blanket on top of us, Matt and I began shivering in the spoon position, our nervous giggles turning into near-tears (ok, that was mostly just me). I slid my jeans back on over my sweatpants, put a second T-shirt on over my sweatshirt and eventually ended up with a pair of Matt’s boxers – clean – around my neck.

Around 10 p.m. I fell asleep and dreamt a cruel dream that I was back home in Mexico City wearing a tank top, the blaring sun shining down as I thanked the Lord that Saturday night was over. Then I woke up and found myself shaking and breathing hard in the fetal position with more than eight hours left until daylight. I couldn’t really fall asleep after that, and the rest of the night was a marathon of peeking my head out from under the blanket for air, switching sides for my frigid fetus form and occasionally shrieking out loud. Everything was dewy.

Even today, on a mild Monday morning, the sensation of being chilled is an unnerving, unsettling feeling that I’ll never be warm again.

By some miracle the sun finally rose, not that it heated anything up, but at least the night was over. Matt and I were the first up (and the only ones without sleeping bags) and we took a walk to get the blood moving into our frozen bodies. I gave Matt a pep talk so he wouldn’t start killing people in a blind rage. Everyone else got up a while later, and with tents packed and teeth unbrushed, we set off down the highway towards cooler things I’d heard about from some other campers.

Not more than ten minutes later we came across the entrance to El Chico, an under-construction visitor’s station there to greet us. “Ahh,” we sighed, “that’s why everything sucked. We weren’t in the park!” A combi took us into Mineral del Chico, a former mining pueblo that was still waking up when we rolled in around 10 a.m. I sipped what might’ve been the best hot chocolate of my life (because I was cold and because it had delicious spices) and a rice pudding “paste,” the region’s flaky pastry specialty. A nice pear vendor handed me two pieces of the fruit for free, laughing as Laura and I bit into the starchy pears because they were apparently meant for baking.

We spent an hour or so basking in the sunlight around Lake [name] and eating 5-peso bags of candy, surrounded by other campers who obviously knew better than we did. Paul bought a “fishing pole,” or an empty plastic Coke bottle wrapped in fishing wire and a bob. He didn’t catch anything in the paddleboat-polluted lake. We watched kite fliers and trampoline jumpers; we later set our packs inside a restaurant and for several hours climbed up to a ridge that overlooked the water. Our spirits and bodies were much warmer. I even sweat enough to remove two of four layers! The descent took no more than 30 minutes, primarily due to the constant decline that left us “forest surfing.”

Lunch was at the lakefront restaurant where we’d left our stuff. I ate a foil-baked trout that, we double-checked, was not from the lake but from a nearby fish hatchery. Matt ate his seventh huge taco for the weekend. Our return to Mexico City was a traffic-less sleepy haze and an unnecessarily long metro ride to my apartment. Once back in my room, I took a much-needed hot, hot shower and brushed my teeth for the first time in nearly two days. I dressed in pajamas suited for an Ohio winter, shut every window and snuggled deeply into my bed, crying a little inside with joy.

The Mexican "Lunch"

Yesterday I met up with everyone at the school to leave together for a end-of-the-year "lunch." We hopped in each other's cars around 3 p.m. and headed down to the San Ángel neighborhood in the south. By chance, we went to the only restaurant I've ever been to in San Ángel, so it was not quite the Mexican mystery I'd been hoping for.

Around 15 of us sat down at a long wood table, a huge wok of paella sitting in the middle and filled with sausage, pigs' feets and all sorts of goodies I can't eat. We started with a couple beers and packets of Saltines (Mexico's equivalent to giving a basket of bread), followed by squares of delicious 'tortilla patata.' I was encouraged by the other teachers to eat all of them (I did) as I wouldn't get to enjoy in the fruits of paella. Next came some raw meat & tuna spread for the Saltines, which I stared at judgingly. Finally the paella wok was returned to our table after being whisked away for cooking on the grill. I selected a few tough, chewy prawns off the top, popped off their heads and peeled away their little feet and smothered them in Valentina salsa, and I added a little bit of the yellow rice and peas on the side, probably smothered in sinful meat juice.

Everything we ate and drank was part of a prepaid package, so once we collectively consumed 20 beers, we were left with the the two bottles of rum and two bottles of tequila on the table. With the food gone, we sat at the table nibbling the typical bar food of wheat puffs covered in chile as we talked about the kids (mostly their cooky parents) and other girly gossipy things and while I humored the 20-year-old door guy who apparently has a case of puppy love.

Around 11 p.m., the four bottles polished off and surrounded by empties of Squirt, Coke and mineral water, we left the banquet room and moved into the cantina part, where drunken karaoke and dancing took place, but fortunately the Jose Cuervo hadn't hit me enough to encourage me to join. I was pulled up to the dance floor by a couple of my teachers, but after showing them what I mean when I say "gringos don't dance," they let me sit back down. The principal ordered another two bottles of tequila, and with an incredible performace by my liver, I continued drinking until 1 a.m. without much more than a buzz. Good work, OU.

Eventually we all went back to our homes (or some of us to other parties, ahem), me hitching a ride with my infant teacher and her sober husband. As a side note, drunk driving in Mexico does not carry the appropriate stigma that it does in the U.S.

And that, my friends, is a Mexican lunch.

More than just mariachi

Many people conjure up images of decked-out mariachi men when they think about Mexico's music scene. Others picture baggy-shirted images of reggaeton phenoms like Daddy Yankee (who is actually Puerto Rican, but that's beside the point).

I'm here to tell you there's another tune those of you on the outside have been missing.

Anyone living in the city will undoubtedly hear the monotone, incoherent recordings of various carts and trucks that drive through the streets all day, every day. The most ubiquitous and distinguishable are the tamales or camotes vendors; others, like the fruit vendor who circles my block, solicit their product in one five-minute breath of nonsensical syllables.

I have no idea what the voice in the following clip is saying, but as today (July 5) was the mid-term elections in Mexico, perhaps we can pretend it had something to do with encouraging voters to hit the polls. The visual quality of this clip is atrocious (and not rotated), and the sound quality is barely even mediocre. However, it's the best I could too in a flash of inspiration. So shut up and listen!

Long time, no blog

A three-week absence does not a devoted blogger make. I'll blame the 60-hour work week, that always seems to justify things easily.

I just returned yesterday from a glorious escape to the motherland - Ohio. I spent about eight days basking in the warm glory of Ohio summers, and luckily I got in early enough to avoid the suffocating humidity.

[Note: While I was off frolicking in the Promised Land, my roommate Paul was off to Honduras covering the military coup firsthand. He had his story posted in the Wall Street Journal and took some amazing pictures as the events unfolded. And the day I came back to Mexico, Matt left for a film project in Lima, Peru. Let's just say both will receive jealous punches to the face when they return, and congratulatory hugs of course].

On my first weekend back to the U.S. of A, I hopped in a car for the first time since February (eek!) and drove up to Napoleon for the wedding of my OU friends Patrick and Emily. The setting was gorgeous, and though I don't think I could live surrounded by billowing 'amber waves of grain,' it certainly made for the perfect summer backdrop. Reuniting with my OU ladies was an incredibly glorious, short-lived experience that painfully reminded me of those precious years in Athens.

The rest of my Ohio days were filled with all-too-brief moments with family, friends and the new family cat, Miles, as well as all-too-depressing First World shopping sprees that made me both curse the strong dollar and my peso-fied salary with each exasperated swipe of the debit card. But I knew I had to take advantage of the U.S.'s saturated clothing industry, as things in Mexico tend to be incredibly expensive or cheap but tacky and/or ugly. And while I am extremely appreciative for the free meals that my loved ones bestowed upon me at Ohio's fine dining institutions, I found myself cursing American gastronomy as only gryo carts littered a late-night Arena District while I craved Mexico's delicious all-night taco bars, where ravenous diners can stumble in at 4 a.m. and tally boxes on an order card just like those at sushi restaurants.

I also hung around to watch the Friday fireworks downtown for Red, White & Boom (though my heart lies with the Worthington 'works). It was a wonderful chance to see some familiar TWHS faces, wear a star-spangled necklace and randomly burst into patriotic tunes at whim. My actual 4th of July experience took place in Mexico with much less American pride. Laura and I put together a little cookout feast of hamburgers (meat and veggie, duh), watermelon, potato wedges and Rice Krispie treats for seven or so Mexican friends, who despite enjoying the buffet did not want to listen as we YouTube-d songs like "You're a Grand Ole Flag," "Yankee Doodle Dandy," "America the Beautiful," and, of course, a clip of the Backstreet Boys singing the national anthem. Instead our Mexican guests preferred to roll their eyes at the outright patriotism we tried to force upon them. I mean, come on, we rule the universe, can't we gloat every once in a while?

Now it's midnight on a Sunday, which means in seven short hours I'll kick off my last full week at the preschool and begin the fourth edition of my Embassy Row supplement. I already stress-cried once, and the fun hasn't even started yet!