Puebla is reached after a couple of hours on a bus out of Mexico City past fields and under a little less smog than the capital. A stroll through the nearly 500 year old settlement took us past flat walled buildings rising straight up from the footpath with tiny balconies, ornate iron work, giant wooden doors and in a multitude of bright and varied colours. A purpose-built city established in the 1530’s due to its strategic location for the Spanish invaders, it doesn’t rest over indigenous ruins and features an elaborately decorated and monstrous cathedral next to the zocalo for its million or two citizens. A centre for ceramic crafts, buildings adorned all over with hand painted tiles, gay nightclubs, a street named for its abundance of candy shops and a luche libre arena, this place has it all and has a genial manner at least during the day.
In our short time here we have been down the Avenue of the frogs and oooh’d and aaahh’d in the antique shops, stopping for a couple of free-pour rum and cokes, spoken in hushed tones in the cathedral trying to hear each other over the loudspeaker repeating prayers and incantations even when a service isn’t in full swing, eaten too much delicious food including the Poblano version on mole, shopped among tiny market stalls and mixed with the cheering locals at the wrestling.
The Luche Libre arena in Puebla is located in the slightly dodgy part of town, about ten blocks from our hotel and we knew we had arrived in the right spot when the scalpers started pestering us, the masks glittered from every side and we joined a long line to get our tickets. I have two masks, a black, red, gold and white piece of fright-wear, and a simpler green and gold for my Aussie tendencies. The wrestling square I’d call a stage, since it’s really an elaborate acrobatic display with men, women and, as it turns out, little people, of all shapes and sizes doing their best to ham it up for the crowd. And the crowd responds with cheers and jeers, drumming chanting beats, rattling the metal seating and hooting and hollering over each other. It was such an extraordinary spectacle for a foreigner like me I didn’t know where to look with so much to take in. Between trying to buy beers from the lady in the aisle yelling cerveza every two minutes, the dapper ring master announcing the wrestlers as they emerged from behind the sequined curtain to strut down the catwalk and watching the local barmy army go toe-to-toe across the cages I couldn’t help whopping along with the fans and joining my tour mates in our exclamations of sympathy pain as each throw saw a wrestler sail through the air before crashing to the floor. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve had a sore throat from yelling as if I’ve been to a State of Origin match. Trouble is my usual penchant for long-winded, but sometimes witty, insults for the ref would have fallen on no comprendo ears.
