Indigenous women reign in Bolivia's wrestling rings

By Helen Livingstone Oct 27, 2011, 3:06 GMT

El Alto, Bolivia - The crowd roars its approval as Martha la Altona bounces off the ropes, charges into her opponent, flips him over her shoulder, slams him onto the floor of the ring and proceeds to jump on his head.

But La Altona, whose real name is Jenny Mamani, is no ordinary wrestler. She is a cholita cachascanista, one of Bolivia's infamous female fighters who take to the ring in full traditional dress - including bowler hats.

'I'm always afraid before a fight, especially against the men,' Mamani says backstage, crossing herself. 'They're a lot meaner and tougher.'

Her point is driven home by the entry of another cholita, more petite than her well-built colleague, her white top covered in blood. Her opponent had thrown her into the railings surrounding the ring, where she landed at the feet of a group of delighted Israeli tourists.

The wrestling matches take place in the city of El Alto - from where Mamani takes her fighting name - which balances on the mountain above the country's de facto capital, La Paz. At 4,000 metres in altitude El Alto commands startlingly beautiful views over the surrounding snow-peaked mountains, which contrast starkly with the dirtiness and poverty of its streets.

The city has sprung up over the last decades, as immigrants from the nearby Altiplano pour in looking for work. The majority of its million-strong population is under 25 and speaks Aymara, the indigenous mother tongue of around a quarter of Bolivia's inhabitants.

Sunday's afternoon wrestling matches have become an attraction for locals as well as tourists. Whole families comprising grandparents, aunts and uncles and children - the locals say Bolivians have children like 'zamponas' or panpipes because they are so numerous - turn out in force to squash onto the benches of the run-down arena, which has a capacity of 500.

'Wrestling has been around in Bolivia for around 60 years,' says 31-year-old Denys Sanjines, who bought the exclusive rights for the promotion, publicity and marketing of the Sunday extravaganzas eight years ago. 'But 15 years ago it was in the doldrums, nobody was going to watch it - so they hit on the idea of having cholitas fight,' she says. 'They held auditions and from there on they've never looked back.'

The cholitas, the diminutive of the word chola, used in Bolivia to mean a woman who dresses in the traditional fashion, are the highlight of each week's programme. To the urgent tones of the 80s hit 'Eye of the Tiger' they burst from behind the flimsy gold curtain and into the ring in their full regalia.

Their costume includes layer upon layer of heavy 'polleras', or skirts, which make the women almost as wide as they are tall and reflects the Bolivian belief that larger women are more beautiful and fertile.

Enormous gold hoops dangle from their earlobes and colourfully embroidered shawls are held in place by large brooches. All topped off by the infamous bowler hats, also covered in gold bling, and which can cost as much as 200 dollars.

Many of the women who fight are single mothers, Sanjines says, and often have secondary jobs - as teachers, nurses and shop assistants.

Mamani, who doesn't want to say how much she earns or reveal her age, also works as a costume-maker to support herself. She began wrestling eight years ago.

'I don't like the machismo of the men here and I wanted to show that women can do anything men can,' she says. Her father was a wrestler too, and her sister is also one of the ten cholitas who feature regularly in the shows.

'They're fanatical about wrestling,' says Sanjines of the cholitas. 'And they're real professionals.' As they make more money now, they can also afford health insurance, she adds.

The women train twice a week and are as ambitious in their moves as the men. They break wooden boards over each other's heads, swing each other round by their pigtails and spring from the tops of the ropes to crash-land on the prostrated figures of their opponents.

Though most of the spectators are clearly enthused, it isn't to everybody's taste. 'It's interesting to come as a one-off but I don't really enjoy seeing women getting beaten up by men,' says 21-year-old British student Ben Reynolds. 'Or other women.'

Mamani's daughters, aged 16 and 14, agree. 'They never come to watch,' Mamani says. 'They don't like to see me get hurt.'

And wrestling has taken its toll on her. 'We have a lot of accidents and I have a lot of problems with my elbow and my knees.' She points to scars on her nose and at the corner of her eye, before lifting up her voluminous skirts to reveal a pair of incongruous red knee pads.

But the injuries are a small price to pay for the kick she gets out of wrestling. 'I love it, it makes me feel important, when the crowd cheers,' she says, showing off a small wooden trophy which some fans presented to her. 'I will keep wrestling as long as my body allows me to.'