Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Sunday we had a decidedly unusual day. Fans of Jack Black's goofy comedy Nacho Libre will understand that when we learned that the Lucha Libre were in town, we had to make a trip to see them.  However, because the Luchadores didn't get underway until 12:30, we zipped over to Merida's Regional Anthropology and History Museum, where we got a guided tour of this small, but interesting collection.

This figure is a mayan noble wearing a jaguar headress.

This is a terra cotta incense burner.

This is a stone ornament showing a serpent, with mouth open, and man emerging from the serpents mouth.

Now as I said, after the trip to the museum we headed out to Merida's Polyforum Izamna to see the Lucha Libre, Mexico's equivalent of the WWF. Unlike the WWF, the show has a heavy dose of slapstick comedy — raucous, ridiculous, and pure fun. Many of the wrestlers where masks, and flamboyant costumes, which just adds to the fun.  The Lucha Libre are very popular in Mexico, and the matches travel from city to city with regularity. 

This is the interior of the Polyforum, showing the number of seats and the layout of the show.  Imagine every seat in the place filled, which was the situation by the time the main bouts were underway.

The Lucha's are a family event, with whole families including very small children coming out to the show after Sunday mass.  The organizers cater to families too, with a wide variety of snack food and noise makers available from the stadium vendors. 

There were five bouts on the card, with each becoming more raucous and crazy as the afternoon wore on. 

There was plenty of throwing…

 … posing …

… flips …

… wedgies …

… audience participation …

… spins …

… lost shorts (a match winning move, it turns out!) …

… lady wrestlers, large and small …

… referee distractions (he's the guy in black!) …

… men in drag …

… referee participation! …

… body slams…

… and a bona fide cage match to finish the whole thing off!

After the match, all 8 boys with us each got a genuine Luchadore mask.  Beds and hallways have been used for wrestling matches for the last three days with great regularity. 

I'll preface this by noting that I am not at the VON show in San Jose this week.  Not because I don't think it's a great event, but because Spring VON always coincides with spring break in Canada and I have kids.  I'll be there in the fall though.

My great friend (and an advisory board member at iotum) Tom Howe has decided not to head to VON this year.  You can read his reasons, but they boil down to being busy, and his feeling that VON is less relevant to him than it used to be.  O'Reilly's ETel show is where the action is.

Moshe Maier (an iotum partner!) takes a slightly different tack, encouraging the Pulver team to reenergize their conference with VoIP innovation tracks. 

Me, I have a different view.  After last year's ETel I had an email exchange with Jeff in which I encouraged him to add an ETel-like track, or perhaps an event, to VON. Jeff gently explained to me that the ETel audience and the VON audience are different.  Very true.  VON has become a great place to learn about large scale carrier deployments, and to meet carriers.  It's not the place where the Linux hackers hang out.

There's a place for VON, and a place for ETel, and they don't necessarily have to be the same show.  The center of innovation has shifted to ETel, but the people I want to do business with are at VON.

Saturday we changed locale from Cancun, to Merida — the capital city of Yucatan State.  Getting to Merida is a 3 1/2 hour drive from Cancun on the 180 toll road.  Tolls will set you back just over M$300. 

Halfway to Merida, about 20 km from Valladolid, there is an infrequently visited post-classic Mayan site called Ek Balaam.   It's well worth the trip, just to see the stucco images and frescoes which have been uncovered in the last 10 years.

Ek Balaam is relatively small, with a number of low buildings and a ball court.  The main attraction is the large pyramid to the north of the site called El Castillo.  A number of thatched roofs have been constructed atop the pyramid, in order to preserve the stucco as it is uncovered. 

Ascending the main pyramid, you are able to step off the staircase to the left, and then view the jaguar mouth doorway.  This particular facade, which is all stucco, is probably one of the most stunning doorways present anywhere in the Mayan world today.

Flanked on either side by elaborate stucco figures, the main door is a stylized representation of a jaguars mouth.  The ruler of the city would appear standing upon the lower jaw of the jaguar.

The base of the jaw is encircled by key designs, and supported on each corner by a skull.

Directly on either side of the doorway are masks of the rain god Chac.

Seated above the doorway is another figure wearing large earplugs.  For me, this one is eerily reminiscent of the figures you see on Indian temples.  

Farther to the right of the doorway are two large warrior figures with feathered capes.  The first wears a belt, but doesn't appear to be wearing a headpiece, while the second wears an elaborate headdress and earrings.

Throughout the site, intact paint such as this small scene painted on the side panel of a doorway can be found.  We later learned that, while restoration has been underway for some time at Ek Balaam, more than 50% of the existing stucco is original, which is why through all of these photographs you can see small quantities of original paint.   

 After leaving Ek Balaam we continued on to Merida, where we checked into El Castillano hotel, a couple of blocks from the central square.  The bellhop informed us that it was Mexican night in the square, so we headed over to see what was happening.  Traffic was blocked off for blocks around the square, and the streets were flooded with people eating in restaurants, each with it's own musical act. 

A popular tourist activity is getting a "calese" ride from one of the numerous local drivers.

Over beside the cathedral in the square you can find a calese line, just like a taxi line, where you can get a ride yourself, which we did later.

Throughout the square, there are flower sellers seeking to sell you a rose for your sweetheart.  

Street musicians also offer lessons on how to play exotic instruments, like the ordinary cross-cut saw.  This guy was remarkable, using a simple bamboo and fishing line bow to coax everything from Happy Birthday to the Ode to Joy from his saw.

Even ordinary people seemed to be carrying guitars, sitting in cafés, and strumming tunes.