But we did have moments of freedom, and those along with the great people we met made the trip an all round good time.
In anticipation of the hectic schedule, I flew into Mexico City a day early with my three colleagues to take a day to explore the city a little bit more. We've done the same for the last couple years, and each of these days give us a further glimpse into the city and a fuller picture beyond the confusion and chaos. Finally, I'm starting to know my way around a little bit, use a few more words of Spanish, and understand what's going on around me. But I also think there's a saying along the lines of the more you think you know, the less you understand. Or something like that. Anyway, suffice it to say that Mexico City is a place that at once fascinates and confuses me.
So, our first day we made a pact to not talk about work, as come Monday it would possess every waking moment. Instead, we headed to Teotihuacan. On the most superficial level, you can find a couple of fun pyramids to climb - the Sun and the Moon. But on a more impressive level it's one of the most important and most continually inhabited sites in central America, with 4000 years of civilization and the remarkable pyramids built 2000 years ago. At it's height, the ancient city had probably 200,000 citizens and a extraordinarily complex culture.
That was pretty much our collective understanding of the site. With only the most cursory knowledge of the context, we happily climbed the Pyramid of the Sun and checked out the view below.
Another highlight of the day was discovering that El Bajio Restaurant, which we had visited for a cooking lesson a year ago, had opened a new restaurant just a block from our hotel. Now tacos and sopes and tostadas were just a moment away... heaven!
But the craziest part of our trip was taking in a Mexican wrestling match on the last night. I must admit, I was not at ALL interested in the idea of any kind of wrestling for most of the week. The match was slated for Friday night, and we had a 4:30am departure from the hotel the next morning to get to our flight. After a crazy week, I was less than enthusiastic about a late night, especially with such a bloody, sweaty sport. And I was initially very worried about safety, as it sounded like the arena was more suited to burly rough chilangos, rather than naive lightweight gringas.
But the response from our Mexican friends to my colleagues' interest in Lucha Libre was surprising, and the suggestion that we were attending was consistently met with smiles and encouragement, and in many cases offers of accompaniment. In fact, by thursday night we already had about 10 people who had promised to attend with us. That evening we hosted an event for about 50 people. When Jorge, the director of the Canadian office in Mexico, introduced us to the crowd and let them know of our plans, we were greeted with applause and cheers. In fact, we had a couple of Televisa producers in attendance. Televisa is the he primary television network in Mexico, and also happens to own the stadiums where the Lucha Libre matches are held (and broadcast the matches). They immediately offered to host us (and our entourage) to the match, and actually got Mistico, one of the most famous fighters, on the phone to talk to Kristine, my colleague whose passion and enthusiasm for the movie Nacho Libre drove the idea from the beginning. Mistico, for those who are interested, was very polite and soft spoken. By this point, it was clear I simply could not beg off for any reason... attendance was no longer optional.
Friday night arrived and we headed to our friend and colleague Daniela's house for a bite to eat and a few drinks before heading on to the arena. By this time, our group numbered 18. We had arranged with a driver for the evening, who was able to take most of us by van to the stadium, with a small red car carrying the remaining four following close behind. At the mayhem of the stadium, it was a little while before we were organized to go inside, which gave us time to gawk at the imitation masks being sold outside by street vendors, and study the leaflet highlighting the night's matches. Dr. Wagner, LA Park and the popular Shocker were all slated to appear.
Nothing could have prepared me for the nuttiness that was the ring and arena. The crowd was going wild screaming profanities (as one of our Mexican friends commented "I want to tell you what they are saying, but I can't bring myself to say the words.") At any given time, the ring had not two, not four, but six wrestlers, fighting in pairs or sometimes in an elaborate combination of three or four, either inside the ring or not. I slowly gathered that they were fighting in teams of three, with 'good' always pitted against 'evil'. But really, it mattered little to me who was fighting who, the spectacle was too wild to care. Women in bikinis would escort the wrestlers down a catwalk to the ring, and there they would doff their elaborate capes or other outfits (Shocker chooses denim overalls, LA Park dresses like a skeleton) and strip down to the usual outfit of a pair of colourful spandex tights and a full headmask.
The actual fight, which was the part I was dreading, was much less combative and violent than a display of full-contact acrobatics. Flips, somersaults, and cartwheels featured more prominently than blood, although it usually ended by landing on someones' chest.
The absurdity of the evening came to a dramatic crescendo with the last match of the evening. The aforementioned Shocker and LA Park (each with their own little victory dance) led the crowd to and absolute frenzy, and my disbelief came to a peak when a very small midget, dressed in a blue and yellow gorilla suit, joined the ring and was tossed about like a football (with the crowd yelling "For God's sake, he's a human!" and "Run midget, run!") before eventually gaining his own revenge when he leaped from the top rope onto an 'evil' wrestler lying on the ground below. Insanity.
I was still expecting the crowd to be rough and burly, and to a certain extent they were. But a young, yuppy-ish couple were seated directly behind me, she looking particulary pretty and well dressed. When I turned to one of my friends to say "She looks like such a nice girl," she in turn addressed me in perfect English. "Yes, I am a very nice girl," she said very politely, "This is my therapy," and went back to screaming very bad things at the top of her lungs.
Sadly, we weren't allowed to take cameras into the arena so I have little photographic evidence of the evening. I did, however, call Scott in the middle of the madness to give him a play-by-play. "Oooh, that must have hurt!! Ooof, right on the chest!" and so on. He was greatly amused, and now has a commemorative mini-mask keychain. Check out the following video, it's a pretty good summary.