Staircases & Wrasslin' (December 25)

(Map of the day.)

Seeing as it was Christmas Day, we slept in, and then headed to the Convent del Carmen, to see their mummified corpses. But, because it was Christmas, the museum portion of the convent was closed.

On the long trek back to the subway station, we cut through a large (and groomed) park. In the middle, was a large edifice. We decided to check it out, so the trip to this end of the city wouldn't be a total loss. It was tall and narrow, with one set of stairs leading up to a dark, open doorway. Two large, carved figures flanked the door.



Inside was a circular marble room; there was a round opening in the middle of the room. Looking down, there was what seemed like a glass-bottomed pond. The interior was so gloomy, that trying to take any pictures was pointless. Opposite to the door was a statue of a general with its right hand missing. A small man with white cowboy boots seemed to work there, and he was very excited to see us. He gesticulated and indicated in Spanish that we should head down the dark marble staircase.

There was nothing in the bottom level except the empty pond-thing and a case set into the wall which contained the statue's right arm. Bear in mind, there weren't even plaques or signs indicating what any of this meant.

We headed back up, and now the little man wanted us to go up a tiny, dark, off-limits-to-the-public looking spiral staircase. He lit a candle for us, and gave us his box of matches (in case the candle went out). Candle in hand, we slowly made our ascent. The stairs were extremely steep and narrow, and with the exception of the candle, completely dark. After what seemed like forever (and remember we had no idea what awaited us), we emerged onto the roof of the monument. The view was amazing, but we were still unsure why the man sent us up. A view of the city from our private perch:



The entire episode was really bizarre. Leaving the park, we headed to the area that would be hosting the evening's Lucha Libre match. Scalpers pounced on us as we approached to wicket, trying to convince us to buy ringside seats. We opted for the legal choice and made our way for our next destination: Chapultepec Park.

We wanted to see the Castillo de Chapultepec and its gardens in addition to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. Given the start time for the wrestling match, we opted to skip the castle, and hit the museum, as it houses the famous 12-ton Aztec Sun Stone. Unfortunately, this enormous park had simply the worst, most confusing signage I have ever encountered in my life. We would have more luck if they were all in Mandarin and Arabic. Also, further proof of Mexico's forethought in terms of planning, there is not one, but 2 freeways running through the middle of the park. This does not inspire easy exploration of the park. A final factor that was working against us: it was Christmas Day, so everyone and their dog was at the park (including stall after stall of junk).

We spent about 45 minutes trying to find their famous nationally recognized tourist-draw of a museum. When we finally found it, I was not impressed:



Because we were low on time, we bee-lined straight for the Sun Stone. This is the stone that is the Aztec calender that people reference when they say the world ends in 2012. Upon my close, unprofessional inspection, I found no indication that the end of times is neigh:



All the other artifacts were culled from the temple sites we had already visited, except that they were in better condition (apparently the museum sweeps in and gets to take all the better pieces). With that, we headed back to the wrestling arena.

After both of us were patted down thoroughly (I'll let you come to your own conclusions), we were escorted to our seats. Vendors milled around, hawking the standard beer, pop, popcorn, candy, hats, etc. The wrestling matches themselves were pretty solid. They contained fewer strength-based moves and had more holds, but didn't have as much acrobatic work as I had anticipated. Most of the wrestlers wore Lucha Libre masks. Every one of the 7 or so matches (with the exception of one) was tag-team. One match was women; and they really fought. Some of their stage names: Lady Apache and La Nazi. Another match had a midget fighting on a tag-team. The headlining match had an obese man ("Porky"); not a single person could get out from under him when he was laying down on them.

Each match was awarded as best out of three bouts. Each bout was announced by a scantily-clad girl with a sign --> pure boxing style. The crowd wasn't nearly as rowdy as I had thought it would be, but overall, not a bad way to spend Christmas.