Puebla
We left by van in the late afternoon to Puebla, an industrial city of three million, with a beautiful old town centred by a massive church and zocalo (town square).
We had some mollettes (deep fried tortillas filled with whatever) as street food appetizers, then tacos at taco joint.
We made our way to the arena for Lucha Libre. We were late and had to stand for two hours to watch the matches. I first saw this sport a couple of years ago in Mexico City. It’s like wwe in Canada I think. Some of the fighters are enmascardo, masked characters. They aren’t seen in public without their masks. Lucha libre masks are a big souvenir item.
On the fight card I saw that my favourite from last time, Dragon Lee, was fighting! My group got to go backstage and get a picture with him last time. He is a tecnico, or one of the good guys. The bad guys are usually dressed in black of course. He comes from a long line of Lucha Libre fighters, with his brothers Rush and Mistico.
Dragon and his team of three got hammered. At the end the medics were checking his eyes with a flashlight and pounding his back. But they got in a team bounce-against-the-ropes-and-jump-over-the-other-side right on to the bad guys, who were conveniently lined up outside the ring to be landed on.
It’s all good fun of course with the audience drinking beer and yelling bad words. But our tour leader told us that a couple of years ago a fighter was thrown against the ropes and died instantly from a broken neck.
We had the next morning to explore Puebla. Its grand cathedral had Easter services going on. Its famous Amparo museum was closed on Tuesday, but we found a Frida Kahlo exhibit and a museum of the Mexican revolution in 1910 in a home where many of the conspirators were killed. Before catching the public bus we had a lunch of mole poblano, the original mole, a sauce that can be made hundreds of different ways, including with chocolate.
Late in the day, we rode on the very comfortable public bus for five hours to arrive in Oaxaca.