Titanes del Ring by way of Bolivia
In lucha libre, no defeat is ever final.
A neat article in The September, 2008 issue of National Geographic.
Visit the site to read the whole story, check out the pictures, and the video!
Related PostsBolivia’s Wrestlers
In the wrestling rings of Bolivia, skirts fly as cholitas fight back!
By Alma Guillermoprieto, National Geographic, September 2008
At the largest public gymnasium in El Alto, Bolivia, daylight is fading from the windows, and hundreds of people along the bleachers are growing impatient. They have been sitting for more than two hours now, jeering and whistling and yelling encouragement at the succession of artistas who have faced off in the center of the gym to match wits and perform dazzling feats of strength and skill. But it is growing late, and over the blaring disco music, foot-stomping and impatient whistles can be heard in crescendo: “Bring them on!” The music grows louder, the whistling too; there is a sense that rebellion may be about to erupt, but at last the houselights flash and dim, and the music shifts to the chunka-chunka beat of a modern Bolivian huayno. An announcer emotes into the microphone, the curtains leading to the locker rooms part, and “Amorous Yolanda” and “Evil Claudina,” this evening’s stars, make their longed-for appearance to ecstatic applause.
Like many of the women of Aymara descent in the audience, Yolanda and Claudina are dressed to the nines in the traditional fashion of the Andean highlands: shiny skirts over layers of petticoats, embroidered shawls pinned with filigreed jewelry, bowler hats. Their costumes glisten in the spotlights while they make a regal progress around the bleachers, greeting their public with the genteel smiles of princesses, twirling and waving gracefully until the music stops. That’s the sign for the two women to swing themselves deftly onto the wrestling ring that has been the focus of this afternoon’s activity. Swiftly they remove their hats, unpin their shawls, and … whap, whap, whap! Claudina belts Yolanda one, Yolanda slaps Claudina, Claudina tries to escape, but Yolanda grabs Claudina by her pigtails and spins her around, and WHAM! Claudina whirls through the air, petticoats and braids flying, and lands flat on her back on the mat, gasping like a fish. The audience goes nuts.
Welcome to the delirious world of Bolivian wrestling. In the cold, treeless, comfortless city of El Alto (”high point”), 13,000 feet above sea level, there are one million people, most of whom fled here over the past three decades to escape the countryside’s pervasive misery. The lucky ones find steady jobs down in the capital city of La Paz, which El Alto overlooks. Many sell clothes, onions, pirated DVDs, Barbie dolls, car parts, small desiccated mammals for magic rituals. The poorest alteños employ themselves as beasts of burden. All of them battle hopeless traffic, a constant scarcity of fuel and water, the dull fatigue of numbing labor, the odds that are stacked against them. When they’re done working, they need to play, and when they want to play, one never knows what they will come up with. Lately, they’ve come up with the extraordinary spectacle of the cholitas luchadoras—fighting cholitas—which has given new life to Bolivians’ own version of Mexican lucha libre, a free-form spectacle somewhere between a passion play, a wrestling match, and bedlam.
“Watch out!” the entire audience shrieks. Yolanda has been celebrating her victory, but Claudina, as proof of her evil nature, is about to lunge at her from behind. Yolanda spins too late; Claudina knocks her flat and clambers like a crazy person onto the ropes. “I’m the prettiest!” she yells at the audience. “You’re all ugly! I’m your daddy! I’m the one the gringos have come to see!” Indeed three rows of ringside seats are filled with foreigners, all pop-eyed, but they’re actually irrelevant. It’s their fellow Bolivians the cholitas are performing for.
Claudina, who is officially a ruda, or baddie, has taken a swig of soda pop and is spraying the public with it at the precise moment that Yolanda, a técnica, or goodie, pounces on her and drags her up to the bleachers, sending the spectators there scattering in blissful, screaming alarm. Yolanda wins! No, Claudina wins! No, Yolanda! But wait! The audience screams in warning again because a new menace has silently made his entrance: “Black Abyss”—or maybe it’s “Satanic Death” or the “White Skeleton”; it’s hard to keep track—has leaped into the fray and has Yolanda in a ferocious leg lock. The situation looks hopeless, but no, here comes the “Last Dragon,” out of nowhere, and he’s carrying a chair! And he’s whomping Black Abyss, or maybe the Skeleton, or maybe Yolanda, on the head with it! Even Claudina seems to have lost track of who’s who: She’s taking a flying leap at her own ally, the loathsome “Picudo.” “He is destroyed forever!” the announcer yells frenetically.
Or almost forever: In lucha libre, no defeat is ever final.
