Day 125 - Mexico City, Mexico

Anderlay anderlay ariba ariba. We are in Mexico City, a city I have wanted to visit ever since being mesmerised by it in a 'worlds mega cities' book I have. 

With one ten hour flight from BA we have gone from Autumn to Spring as we cross back into the northern hemisphere. We land at 6:30am and are pretty knackered as you don't get the greatest of sleep in cattle class and had a bit if turbulence too which never helps.   

Here is our post 10 hour over night flight no make up selfie. Nat isn't playing and is getting cranky!

Our first impressions of Mexico City are completely opposite to what I would have thought. No dusty roads, cactus and tumble weeds in sight. The place if gorgeous, clean, modern, has great architecture, gorgeous parks and has a very heavy American influence everywhere you look (ie Starbucks on every corner). 

We are staying in the very lively Zona Rosa (which also happens to be the gay district) at the great little hotel chain we like to stay in when we go to mainland Spain called Room Mate. This version is called Room Mate Valentina. 

Really cool room. 

After a good four hour sleep it is still only early afternoon and we head out to the historic centre. The weather is gorgeous - it is really starting to out up here but surprisingly absolutely no one (apart from tourists) wear shorts. Despite the soaring temperates you can't see a single local in shorts. 

All the streets around our hotel are landscaped beautifully and have the most amazing trees in full blossom. 

Not sure what it is but I liked it. 

The Mexican Empire State building. 

The Palace of Fine Arts (just passed it obviously!)

We then carry on a very pleasent walk down to the main square in Mexico City. 

Finally Nat has been reunited with her Ray-ban's, albeit a new pair. I am going to cellotape them to her head. 

Randomly popped into a Nike factory outlet shop and picked up this bad boy for £30. Can't be bad. I didn't even know we had a new shirt out. It's really nice. Ready for June now!

We reach the historic city center or Plaza de la Constitución which is a huge square which has many historic colonial landmarks around it including the National Palace, the metropolitan cathedral and the Aztec Templo Mayor. The Zocalo (as it is also called) is the largest square in Latin America and surprisingly the third largest in the world after Moscow's Red Square and Beiking's Tiananmen Square. 

The Mexico City Metropolitan Catherdal which is a pretty impressive building. 

The national palace with one of the biggest flags I have ever seen in front of it. 

The Mayors office. 

The streets around the square are full of commercial activity and are all arranged into blocks that sell very specific stuff such as lighting, air conditioners, sunglasses, pet food, guitars - you name it there is an area dedicated to selling it. 

We then head back to Zona Rosa for a bite to eat which is actually quite difficult to find somewhere that isn't a fast good joint or a buffet / canteen of the plastic garden chair variety. After exploring the whole area were are just about to "go American chain restaurant" and we stumble across a fantastic little fish restaurant called Mar de Mar. It doesn't serve Mexican unfortunately but I do have a great Peruvian ceviche and some great craft beer. 

We have one more beer watching the world go by at a bar called Boomers on the Main Street and then head back to the hotel to get picked up because it's time for Lucha Libre aka Mexican wrestling!! It takes place every Friday night in the 18k capacity Arena which turns out to be just down the road from where we are staying. 

One of the famous masks the wrestlers wear (will explain more shortly). 

Bring out the gimp. God knows how these guys wrestle in these. 

We have gone as part of an organised tour which randomly starts at a hostel. It's pretty good as our guide is really passionate about wrestling and explains it all to us before we go to the arena. Oh and as we are in Mexico we naturally are given multiple shots of tequila. It was actually pretty good stuff and a lot more drinkable than the stuff we are used to. 

At the stadium there is row upon row of stalls selling the masks which a lot of the crowd seem to be lapping up. 

The programme for tonight on a really cool poster. The programme consists of tag teams, women fighters and also hilariously drawfs and gays (no kidding!). 

So let me explain what Lucha libre is all about. It is basically a form of professional wrestling similar to the WWF that is absolutely huge in Mexico. Mexican wrestling is characterised by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers including a lot of crazy high flying maneuvers and a lot of the usual theatrics you will have seen in WWF (speeches on microphones after matches etc). The wearing of masks actually has special significance (kind of like a belt in WWF) where matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask. This is a wager with a high degree of weight attached as they are NEVER allowed to wear their mask again if they lose it. 

They also have a lot of tag team wrestling with three wrestlers per side and they always tend to play best of three where the first to two pins wins. 

It's a fantastic atmosphere in the arena. The wrestlers are absolutely phenomenal athletes flinging themselves around and jumping off anything that they can climb. 

The start of a three man tag team. 

This guy is a real crowd favourite called Super Porkey for obvious reasons. He is hilarious and surprising nimble for a big guy. In this pic he runs at all three of them like a bowling ball knocking them all over. Hilarious. 

Acrobatics of the top rope. 

One of the tag team matches that had just two wrestlers per side had one overtly gay guy on one side who was absolutely brilliant. He was so entertaining being overly theatrical in everything he did and adding a lot of gay innuendo to the fight. They won and it finished by him kissing his unsuspecting partner who then throws a strop, throwing him over the top rope and storming off. Great entertainment. 

Next up was the woman's match and one that I think Nat is still scarred by. At he end of the match the losing woman gets her head completely shaved bald. 

It's designed to publicly humiliate the loser which doesn't seem to work. After a lot of protest she seems proud of her new Jessie J look. 

Then it was time for the final match of the night between Rush and Shocker (crowd favourite). These two were brilliant and really built the crowd into a frenzy. Controversially Rush won which meant that Shocker also had to have his head shaved too. These two didn't have masks so I think of you don't have a mask you get your head shaved. 

All in all a fantastic night and great to see some true Mexican culture. It is such a great night of entertainment watching these hugely impressive athletes.