We’re BAAAAACK! and a trip to see the Lucha Libres

When we last saw our intrepid duo, they were writing about toilets around the world at the end of a 16 month backpacking trip around the world. More than a decade has passed since the Thompson’s last really traveled. I mean, we love to travel so we’ve been some places, but nothing really foreign. Nothing that put us out of our comfort zone. Not that Mexico City is the same a Thailand, but we’ve got a new twist.

Kids! In that decade, we’ve had 3 of them. Harper is 9, Ruthie is 7 and Theo is 3. And let me tell you, traveling with young kids is definitely a twist. For this trip, we’ve added Manon, our French foreign exchange student who’s 16. We had planned to start international travel with the kids two years ago. This trip to Mexico City was scheduled for Spring Break 2020 but then…, well…, you know. Then we finally rescheduled it for Christmas 2021, but Santa brought all of us Covid instead so it’s fitting that we’re finally in Mexico City, exactly 2 years after the first attempt.

And if you want to read a bunch of posts from 10 years ago, the old Thompson Travels blog can be found here..

From left: Harper, Theo and Ruthie

We’re committed to instilling in our kids the same love of travel that we have. There are a lot of great things we want them to learn - a love of adventure, flexibility, problem solving, patience, a thirst for learning, appreciation for other cultures and so much more. So you’ll be hearing from us - we plan to travel at every opportunity that the elementary school calendar allows.

On our first full day in Mexico City, we saw some museums and stuff. Ate some great food. And then, went to see one of Mexico’s greatest cultural exports - the Lucha Libres.

This was a great kid activity. Tickets were pretty cheap - equivalent to $7.50 US. On Sundays, they have an early, family-friendly show that starts at 5pm. When we arrived, the kids needed snacks. This is true anytime we go to an arena of any kind for any thing. The difference here is that we got 3 popcorns, 2 hotdogs, 3 beers and a water. And the total was under $20. Already off to a great start!

And those beers were big beers. That’s where this guy takes 2 beers in one hand and pours them both in a giant cup at the same time. Bargain!

We had cheap seats, but we were still close enough to see pretty well. It started right at 5 to a mostly empty arena. People were steadily streaming in but it was clear that the first match was a warm-up. The kids figured out pretty quickly that the crowd was expected to cheer and boo at the appropriate moments and they got pretty into it. They’d never been encouraged to BOO before and they took to the challenge. In between bites of popcorn and hotdogs, of course.

I’ve heard that lucha libre wrestling is more acrobatic and high-flying than the WWE version that I’ve seen at home. And that was true. Large sections of the matches were more like elaborately choreographed dances than fights. The performers would frequently show off a standing flip or handstand, then the one they’re “fighting” against would encourage the crowd to cheer the feat.

I’ve been to a couple of WWE events in my life and let me tell you, the production quality of the lucha libre show is NOT the same. There basically is no production except for 2 dancing girls that would come out as the fighters were introduced. They had individual dances for each performer. And they would change costumes between each fight. Anna noticed that each successive costume change the costumes were getting increasingly smaller and thought that the show was not going to be “family friendly” if we stayed past 7pm at the rate they were undressing.

In fairness, the wrestlers were screaming in Spanish so I couldn’t really understand them. Maybe someone had the charisma of the Rock in the late 90s and I just don’t speak enough Spanish to get it.

An interesting phenomenon happened between matches. Apparently, the arena is still under June 2020 Covid precautions. They have a cleaning crew come out and sanitize the ring between matches? Presumably so the previous 6 sweaty guys flopping around on the mat and against the ropes and posts won’t infect the next 6 guys who are going to be breathing all over each other? Definitely a high degree of Covid theater.

Each match lasted about 30 minutes. All of the ones we saw were 3 vs 3, which allowed for a large combination of different styles fighting each other. Most teams were 1 huge guy and 2 smaller, more agile guys. There’d be two little guys fighting one big guy, little guys doing all kinds of tricks jumping off the ropes and once a huge guy (named Volcano, our favorite) jumping off the ring onto the floor below and crushing the big guy from the other team. There was more focus on acrobatic tricks and much less focus on the personal stories and drama of US wresting.

It was a lot of fun and the kids loved it. Until Theo ran out of snacks and got bored. He and Harper lasted about an hour and a half, so we left around 6:30. Ruthie was still going strong, but as usual we cater largely to the stamina of the 3 year old. It was a solid ending to our first family international travel experience.

Of course, we had to buy a lucha libre mask as a souvenir and we all took turns making a scary face trying it on. I thought Harper’s was the best.