Tuesday, I had to go back to work, so Tay got up with me and we took the metrobus into town. I got Tay a metrobus card so he used it actually quite a bit, although he stuck to the two basic metrobus routes and didn't venture into the subway. I can't say that I blame him.
While I worked, Tay walked from my office to the Anthropology museum and eventually found the concealed entrance. Like me, his impression was that the Aztec exhibit was the prize and everyone else was kind of sideshow.
After walking back to meet me for lunch, we took the metrobus way far south to San Angel, and had an agreeable if not a little expensive lunch at a recommended restaurant on San Joquin square just as it began to rain. After lunch, I had to hurry back to the office, but Tay wandered around and looked at hte overpriced boutiques around the area before catching a metrobus back up north to my office.
That night, after I got off work, we hurried to the Arena Mexica for the tuesday night Luche Libre. What a surreal experience. I was planning on getting some cheap seats a bit further back from the action, but I felt hurried at the window and the seller interpreted my request for "second ring" as more or less "second row" still pretty cheap.
Lucha Libre is kind of like WWF wrestling but with more acrobatics and more cathartic for the audience. After being thoughly checked for weapons we were admitted to the grungiest indoor arena I've ever seen. And that was in dim florescent lighting.
The arena is actually quite big, with the ring in the center, and an elevated catwalk to the ring from a theatrical entry stage with a LED screen backdrop for the luchadores to dramatically enter. In that way it was really fun. They played all kinds of music to introduce a luchador, who would be displayed on the giant screen, there would be lasers, tons of fog, and bikini girls would would dance in place along the edge of the catwalk for the luchador to walk, run, strut, or leap down.
Tay grabbed us some beers immediately which turned out to be huge movie theater sized big gulps of cerveza but our happiness turned to dismay when we realized that we could only afford one between us. I even scoured the arena looking for an ATM (no luck) since lucha libre is really best served with copious quanties of beer and a few shots of tequila beforehand.
It was fun and entertaining. There was an all-female fight including one woman in her fifties if not sixties. There was a midget with an eagle mask who got in a kick to the head of one of the rival luchadores. The luchadores were actually quite acrobatic, doing flips in place, and backflips off the ropes, swan dives off the ring, tons of tumbles and flips. It was really amazing just to see for that. Actually, the two and a half hours flew by amazingly fast. Everything was boom-boom-boom.
The crowd ate it up. Yelling and swearing, even I learned a few new vulgar combinations. There was a group behind us who heckled incessantly with the most obscene language, mostly suggestions for acts of incest or the luchador's mother's line of work.
I'd go back for a friday fight, which is supposed to be even louder, crazier. But I'm definately bringing more cash.
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