Message Stick

Rather than spend another 26 hours on a bus we flew direct from Cancun to Mexico City for three days in the capital. With around 20 million people living there, Mexico City is one of most heavily populated places in the world. Flying in to heavy rain and smog we felt a long way from the peaceful beach we were lying beside only a few hours earlier. Despite the initial city-shock we were soon zipping around on the metro to visit Diego Rivera’s murals, Freda Khalo’s old house and scores of historical buildings. The Centro Histórico area had a great vibe and unlike other parts of Mexico City it was considered safe to walk around at night, the time when we experienced Mexico’s finest cultural offerings.

The first evening was spent cheering on the Luchadores in Mexico Arena at the Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling. This version of wrestling has more in common with the WWF than the type Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks practiced. Nearly all of the wrestlers are masked and each struts out to the ring along with their own entrance music to loud cheers or boos, whichever is appropriate. The bouts were normally three on three tag-team but with sketchy rules most of the time it was complete chaos.

Our favourite wrestler was ‘Maximo‘, a super-camp exotico wrestler who taunted his opponents with blown kisses and bum pinches. The crowd went wild every time he entered the ring. If Maximo was Queen of the evening, ‘Kemonito’ was King.  Around three feet high and dressed in a blue monkey suit, seeing this furry midget jump out of the ring from the top rope onto a fallen opponent was almost too great a spectical even in Mexico.

We spent the last evening in one of Mexico City’s many famous Mariachi bars around Plaza Garibaldi. Hordes of ageing musicians decked out in black with silver trimmings gather to play songs on demand or to rent their out services for the evening at private parties. The food as we’d come to expect in Mexico was fantastic and watching the Mariachis perform seemed a fitting way to end our time in the capital.