Settling in to Mexico City

It’s been a busy couple of days. The first day I spent the day in Chapultepec Park and the Museo de Anthropologia. Walked through several surrounding neighborhoods to get a feel for the city.

Yesterday I went to the heart of the city; the Zocalo. The square contains the National Cathedral and Palace as well as thousands of stores in the surrounding blocks as well as street merchants and performers all over. I saw some cool things and will have some pictures uploaded at some point.

Lucha Libre:
Friday and Saturday night are the big Lucha Libre nights in Mexico. I sure as hell wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to check it out especially when the arena is a 10 minute walk from my hostel. Asking around one of the hostel workers told me that if I showed up just after it started I could pick up a ticket pretty cheap. So, I walked over to the arena ready to do some haggling and hoping to pick up an upper deck ticket for 50-70 pesos. No sooner than 30 seconds after I showed up a guy gave me a ticket 6 rows from the rink for free.

It was entertaining to say the least. Huge guys wearing spandex in ridiculous costumes wearing masks pretending to wrestle. I can’t even describe how fake it looked but their showmanship and ring acrobatics made it an event I was glad not to miss. Unlike the WWE the matches are three rounds so you need to pin the guy twice to win. A round ends when a guy is pinned and then a beautiful, scantily clad women comes out with a sign announcing the next round (like boxing). Besides pinning you can also rip off the Luchadore’s mask. From what I could tell if a Luchadore’s mask was ripped off he was immediately rendered helpless and fell to the rink covering his face and wouldn’t move. If a whole team’s masks were ripped off they lost the match (the same as being pinned). The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Holman and Eli were there yelling at the Luchadores.

A Few Other Notes:

• Subway: It’s amazing. It’s efficient, cheap and takes you anywhere you want to go. I’m never waiting more than 2 minutes for a train which comes in handy when you have 3 or 4 connections to make.

• Street food: It’s cheap, dirty, and incredibly delicious. Breakfast is provided for me at the hostel but lunch and dinner run me around 60 pesos a day ($5.00 U.S.). For dinner last night I had chicken, potatoes, rice, black beans and tortillas for 20 pesos ($1.75 U.S.) and I was stuffed.  It’s good that food, lodging and transportation is so cheap because moving around the country can be expensive.

• I’m leaving Mexico City on Monday night to bus to Colima. The ride is 10 hours and I’ll arrive early Tuesday morning.