Cholita Wrestling- La Paz, Bolivia

The famous Cholita fighting occurs only on Sundays at 4:30pm in El Alto and Thursday at 6:30pm. Oscar’s aunt and uncle accompanied us to experience this legacy of La Paz and it was the first time for all of us! We drove to the MultiCine to park the car and then took a minibus headed to the airport for 2.40Bs each from Isabela la Catholica (near the Ritz). You can also take this minibus from La Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz if you are not near the multicine. This is not the only way to arrive to the Ceja. If you are in the center of La Paz you can take a minibus from the San Francisco (destination CAJA) to LA Ceja where you will get off when you see the bridge; this ride should take about 30 minutes and cost under 3Bs.

When we arrived to La Ceja there was already a line outside of the door of about 50 people. We bought our tickets and got into the line. Don’t be fooled when you see the line outside as this is the line to enter the auditorium, not to purchase the tickets. Head to the sign that says Boleterio when you arrive. There are two options of tickets, 20Bs for the seats in the bleachers or 50Bs for “VIP” tickets where you sit right by the ring. We opted for the “VIP” 50 Bs ticket since we would only be experiencing this once and wanted to be right up front.

Once the doors open we entered and found that the VIP seating were plastic chairs that were brought to us to place wherever we wanted by the ring. We grabbed a chair and setled into a good spot for the show, right up against the fence. Now, for first time goers I heed one warning for you as this is a very interactive show (which we did not realize at first). If you are uncomfortable with the fighters coming up to you, stealing your beverages, throwing water on you, or even kissing you right on the lips…opt for the bleachers, but for those of you who want the full experience pay that extra 30Bs and you wont be disappointed!

The show started with two male fighters that seemed very much like those that I had seen in Mexico before. After they fought a bit, did there thing the Cholitas started to come out. Each one of them had their own entrance and own specific gig that they did. One of the more famous fighters is a woman who goes around kissing guys on the lips as she enters the arena. She usually targets the gringos and we witnessed her say no to an older local guy when he asked for a kiss (ouch haha). It’s pretty hilarious to see her go around and kiss young white guys out of nowhere when they don’t even ask for it HaHa. The fights are really interactive and is amazing to see that they don’t actually hurt each other with all the moves they do. They do a lot of props, fake blood, and WILL steal your beverages if you are sitting in the front row. There is a fence that separates the crowd from the arena, but all the fighters undo the fence and come into the seating area to take pictures, fight each other, throw water on you, etc .When you head to the cholitas fighting…don’t expect anything to happen or not happen because everything is fair game. 🙂