It soon came time for Felly to leave. We had a late night workout in the hostel, settled to bed, and enjoyed a nice breakfast. As we were touring cusco, Felly wanted to take a picture with a llama and then a baby, and paid a sol each time. Below is us kissing a llama.
After Felly left, I was ready to take a bus to my next destination. At that point, I wasn't very sure where that was. It could be arequipa, it could be puno, and it could be la paz. Since it seemed like all the buses left at night anyways, I figured I would go for La Paz and reduce the total amount of travel time. I decided to wait in a cafe, read, and perhaps update the blog. That plan was only partially successful. I did pass my time in the cafe, but mostly talking with people, including some fellow travelers, an English teacher from Idaho, and people who had just finished their studies and were teaching English locally. I hung out with them for the rest of the afternoon. Once it came time for night, we went our separate ways and I went in search of food.
As you can see here, I found it. Pictured above is alpaca on a bed on risotto. It was probably one of the tastier things I have had on this trip.
It was soon time for me to catch the bus, so I left. The bus was largely without incident, mostly reading and talking. The parts where I got off the bus were a bit more interesting. As La Paz is in Bolivia, I had to cross the border. I had read prior to my trip that it was rather dangerous, but it defied expectations in that respect. I got the immediate impression that the area was poor, solely based on the amount of trash around. I waited in several lines, and somehow, my spanish sufficed. I got into Bolivia, as depicted below, and I had to pay a fairly exorbitant sum for the visa itself. I thought I was done at that point, and I just wanted to get back on the bus (you never want to be left in an unfamiliar area by your bus). I was wrong. They for some reason needed my passport to be photocopied, yet they did not have photocopiers. They sent me outside to the photocopier that was closed, and then I wandered until I found a sign that said fotocopias. Forgive me if that seems like a bit of a leap to think that they might have a photocopier, but when I asked the woman and pointed to the sign there seemed to be no photocopier actually inside. I walked further into Bolivia, searching and asking, but they kept pointing me to the ones I had already checked, and some suggested walking all the way back to Peru. As I came to the first photocopier, it turned out to have just opened, so I got lucky.
These are the guys (Koji and something I couldn't pronounce) who sat next to me on the bus. As well as talking, I traded Spanish lessons for a few Japanese ones that I have largely forgotten.
As we arrived into Bolivia, a unique worry struck me, one that I hadn't had before. Yes, the city was poor, that was evident by the number of rundown buildings, but more worrying was the fact that there were no banks open (it was sunday). I had not exchanged money yet, and there were no ways to get the currency I needed. Fortunately, I found an atm at the bus terminal, so my worries were assuaged. I took a taxi to my hotel, and we chatted in spanish on the way. My taxi driver overshot his destination, so we proceeded to back up until we were approximately in the right spot. At this point I was hungry. Remember that alpaca? Well that was at 9 pm. Now it was 330 pm, and the alpaca was still the last thing I had eaten. I was ready for some food, so as soon as my bags were all in my room I quested in search of food. I saw a sign that signalled thai food, so I went in, and was asked if I were there for the wrestling. I looked in askance, confused but intrigued. I am a wrestler I replied, but still really had no idea what was going on. They were apparently in a cholita wrestling tour about to set off. I went into the tour agency, signed up, bought a snickers, and off we went.
The cholitas wrestling was held in the alto region of la paz, providing a beautiful view of the skyline
My ticket
All the "competitors" paraded around at first
That looked like it hurt
There was a lot of acrobatics too. I like the athleticism involved in some of the jumps and lifts that they did. They also did series of judo throws and bouncing off of the ropes, although the majority of the time was spent grandstanding.
A common theme was the corrupt ref. The ref would obviously favor one wrestler to the point of hugging them, and even intervened physically, ie kicking the other wrestler while they were down. However, the ref always counted too fast, there was then an outrage from the crowd, and then eventually the good wrestler would win, in this case the guy in white.
The red guy was kinda a pimp, his entrance entailed him with two girls around each arm, dancing around. He was the good guy, and dum dum dum, he won.
They interacted with the audience a lot, going so far as to spray confetti from a bag.
The fighting was filled with antics, from hitting each other over the head with crates and chairs, to forcibly kissing cholitas or missing and kissing the ref, to stealing food/ drinks from the audience and bashing each other over the head with it. Altogether, a very bizarre, yet interesting, and slightly fun experience.
He lost, and he looked ever so sad.
It was funny, people were not supposed to throw things, yet the ground was littered with plastic bottles. The crowd was really invested into the fights, from booing at the evil fighters, to throwing things. The kids would slip through the narrow bars to collect the bottles that had been thrown. One adorable little girl who was sitting right next to me did so as well, and I threw (and missed, I have terrible hand eye coordination) the bottles at the evil competitor. When she dragged one of the broken crates that had nails sticking out and gestured towards it as well, I chided her peligroso (dangerous)
After some walking, I found the place that served me what is below.
I got my food. In this case, it was middle eastern, and quite tasty too :)
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