Body slams in Bolivia

La Paz is making me stop and take deep breaths. According to wikipedia, it is 3,600 meters above sea level and mainly sits in a bowl surrounded by the high Andean altiplano.

I typically arrive to a city´s bus terminal, then take a mini van looking colectivo to the center of the city and walk briskly with my backpack to a hostal. I´ve been using a guidebook since Colombia so I always have a map handy of the respective city center, and usually know where to find a hostal. Typically I find a place on the way to the hostal I found in the guide, though....I like the less touristy places.

So, right when I arrived at my hostal in La Paz, I saw a flyer for ´Las Cholitas´ female lucha libre. I really did not know what to expect, except for their to be women wrestling. I arrived to a somewhat dingy gymnasium 400 meters higher than the city center in El Alto, and the show began with two guys in haphazard costumes, gym shoes and a fake brick. I was waiting for the ring to break. Then in the third match, an older, round gentlman wearing a wrestling unitard and with a bumble bee painted in black on his chest pranced out smuggly. After him came a women dressed in what I´m told is traditional ´chola´ dress who did a traditional dance around the ring. To my great, great surprise, one minute later this happened:

This was the second back body slam. Later, la ´cholita´ would come back to win. This was by far the crowd favorite fight of the night.

This video gives you a better view of ´chola´ dress.

On the way down from the lucha, I spoke with the women who organizes the event. It was an interesting exchange, hearing her concerns about not wanting to sacrifice the authenticity of the event to appeal to the many foreign tourists who attend the show. She told me that Bolivian lucha libre has been around since the 50´s and that women have been wrestling for about 10 years now in that show (foreigners have been coming for 4 years or so). Definitely not for everyone, but I was glad to see a women go head to head with a man, and definitely hold her own. Maybe this is an indication of a shift in traditional gender relations...I don´t know. Maybe it´s a ploy to make more money. What I do know that the first body slam reeeeally got me off guard.