I was curious about Teotihuacan, a huge ancient city of pyramids that resides an hour northeast of Mexico City. I probably could have navigated a bus system to get there, but luckily, the hostel had already worked out a charter system with a local tour guide. Early the next day, our tour guide Carlos picked up me and two other guys from the hostel, and then several other people from other hotels.

On our way out of the city, we stopped at Tlatelolco, an Aztec ruin site two miles north. When the Spaniards overtook the Aztec people, they laid waste to their pagan temples and used the stones to build La Iglesia de Santiago Tlatelolco, which stands to this day.

We drove out of the city and reached Teotihuacan an hour later. We parked at a metal shop just outside of the ruins, where local people made handmade jewelry out of silver and carved elaborate designs out of obsidian glass. An older lady gave us a tour of the shop. She also showed us a maguey plant nearby, one of many that is used to distill Mezcal. She explained how Mezcal had been distilled and passed down for generations, long before the Spanish conquest and after. I gladly had a shot.

When I went into the shop to look around, I heard a senora’s voice behind me. “You went to Lucha!” I turned around. It was the women who I sat next to at the Lucha fight the other night. The same two couples who tried to get me to drink cerveza with them. I said hi again, and we made whatever small talk we could manage. I didn’t know how to ask them in Spanish if I was being followed.

Carlos took us to the ruins and gave us about an hour to walk around. Comprised of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the Avenue of the Dead going between, and numerous smaller pyramids along the passage, Teotihuacan is a magnificent old city, named by the Aztecs as the “birthplace of the gods”. Now, tourists flock to this site to walk the avenue and climb the pyramids. Local vendors can be found selling replicas of flutes used by the ancient people. And there were these whistles that sounded like buzzards crowing.

I first climbed the Pyramid of the Moon, the smaller of the two. It was nearly 50 meters high, but was roped off about halfway up. Nonetheless, the climb was a still a hassle, with each step a foot and a half high. The view across the city from the second platform was well worth it.

I scrambled back down and walked along the avenue and smaller ruins towards the Pyramid of the Sun. Here, visitors climbed a huge staircase of 64 meters to its summit. From where I stood, they looked like ants on the top of a huge anthill. As I climbed the steep sections of stairway going up, I was already out of breath. I finally reached the apex and looked out at the buildings below, surrounded by the town and mountains. Cawing and whistling of flutes echoed across the old city.

Finally, we came back into Mexico City and stopped to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a famous Roman Catholic shrine north of downtown. Again, no half measures in these fine old Mexican buildings.

And then I partied with some of the hostel people that evening. It was New Year’s Eve after all.

I drank at the bars until about 2am. When I came back to the hostel, a group of 12 people were sitting in the main room drinking. One of the employees handed me a shot of Jose Cuervo, which, like a bad omen, marked the beginning of the end.

Early the next morning, my own stomach woke ME up. It was a clusterfuck of hangover and stomach illness – what any of my backpacking friends in Latin America would tell you is par for the course. Whatever it was (I’m still blaming that damn tequila), my body tried its absolute hardest to expel it. It took me a whole day just to keep down solid food, and I fought continuously to stay hydrated. Behold, the infamous shitcannon of Mexico. On a good note, I was in a private room in the hostel, so at least I didn’t have to share the bathroom.

I flew back to Chicago the next morning, well enough to eat but pretty wrecked otherwise. When I walked out of the terminal, I realized that my passport was missing. Shit! I left it in the bathroom! Right after 1 of 20 dumps I took that day.

I ran back and looked in the stall for it. No luck. I asked the Information and Homeland desks if they had it. They didn’t. This was bad. Immediately, I went outside and reported it as lost on the Homeland website, the first smart thing I did that day. It was effectively deactivated for good. So even though a thief would still have my information, at least they couldn’t use it to fly.

Defeated, I took the train back to my apartment and pointlessly looked through my baggage again. I spent a couple hours browsing in circles on Google for answers. Finally, I tried to call the Homeland desk again for followup, but couldn’t get through.

Okay. It’s possible that somebody turned it in after I left. I do need to rule that out. I’ll go back and ask them again. If they still don’t have it, I’ll find a cop and file a police report. I got my head straight, cleaned up, and got back on the train for O’Hare.

I entered the terminal and went straight to the Homeland desk to ask the agent. “Hey, I think somebody might have stolen my passport earlier when I left it in the bathroom. Did anybody turn one in here?”

He gave me a funny look. “Yeah, we do have one, actually. What’s your name?”

“Daniel.”

“You from Virginia?” YES!!!!! I’M FROM VIRGINIA!!!!! Holy shit! I’ve never been this proud of my home state in my life! “Hold on a second” he said, and left to get it. Thanks to a good Samaritan, the newly cancelled passport that ruined the last four hours of my life was safely back in my hands. I still have to reapply again for a new one, but whatever. Happy Fucking New Year.

As for the ongoing shitcannon, that went on for three more days. I finally went to my doctor, who thought it was Salmonella or some variant of it. He set me up with a bottle of Cipro, which cleared it up that evening.

You might ask, “Would you do all of this again, Dan Hagen?” I love the food, people, and culture of Mexico too much not to. Hell yeah, Mexico, I will see you again. Y por favor no mas tequila!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! Can anything rock harder than a Lucha Libre fight in Mexico City? This was a whole new level of badass that I had no idea even existed. This was in caliber with the 80’s era Schwarzenegger movies. This was every riff on Slayer’s Reign In Blood album. This was the feeling I got the first time I beat Super Mario 3 and the last time I beat Final Fantasy 6. This was every Andrew WK Party Tip that I’ve shared on Facebook. This was so fucking awesome that I have to take breaks from writing about it just to sort out what it all means in my head.

This is Lucha Libre, the free fighting of Mexico.

I knew about it for a while, but only had a passing knowledge of what it was about before visiting Mexico over the holidays. Here in Chicago, I’ve frequented the Tamale Spaceship for years, a Lucha inspired restaurant and food truck, where the operator wears a luchador mask and sombrero and sells hot tamales to the city streets. More recently, my friend Lauren recommended it when I told her I would be visiting Mexico City for New Years. I looked into it, found the video above, and just about lost my shit.

Obviously, it is much more theatrical in style than anything I was used to. Unlike the American redneck WWE wrestling that we have come to know and love here in the states, which depends largely on hard-hitting blows and aggression, Lucha Libre fighters focus more on acrobatics and high-flying moves to out-maneuver their enemies. They are gymnasts, and they train for years before setting foot in a professional ring.

It turned out that Arena Mexico, the prime venue for Lucha fights and going sixty years strong, was the epicenter of where the scene really took off. And it wasn’t just there – it was not uncommon to find smaller Lucha matches around the working class neighborhoods in the city. Over time, it became a common unifying symbol to the culture and people of Mexico.

Though some of its fighters don’t wear masks, the ones who do often conceal their identities, as to more wholly represent a character or icon fighting for good or evil. Many use their fame to further their efforts in community outreach, and can be seen leading protests, voicing working class issues to local bureaucrats, running orphanages, teaching young kids how to wrestle, you name it. They are more than wrestlers. They are angels, devils, undead, saints, and fighters for the common working man.

It was a fine night in Mexico City, just a few days shy of New Years, and the arena was packed. I sat next to two couples in their fifties, who were apparently on a double date. This would be a great place to take a lady, I thought (honestly guys, if your woman doesn’t want to come to something like this, then you can do better). After saying hi, they gave me a “Salud!” One of them noticed my water bottle and asked “Por que no tienes cerveza?” They’re trying to get me to drink with them.

“Uh, porque necesito agua primera!” The lights dimmed and the first trio of Luchadores came out to the ring. Four animadoras came out in bikinis and Santa Claus hats, and danced while the announcer read off each fighter. The crowd cheered as each of the tecnicos climbed into the ring in blazing glory; and likewise booed each of their opponents – respectively referred to as rudos, or the bad guys.

There were five matches in total. Three versus three in each fight. When they started, two wrestlers would square off in the ring and size each other up with smaller hits. Soon though, it would all break loose in a flurry of fly kicks, flipping off of ropes, acrobatic tackle moves, and choreographed swan dives out of the ring and into enemies. Often somebody would slam onto the mat hard enough for my own back to hurt. Sometimes they yelled back at the crowd and got them even more riled up. When a Luchador got tired, he would duck under the ropes so another could jump in, and the fights went on. All while the lovely animadoras strutted along the walkway in Sexy Santa attire, and vendors went around the aisles selling cerveza, family sized potato chips, masks, air horns, and whatever else.

The most memorable fight of the night was the fourth one. Apparently, these people don’t think very highly of their Puerto Rican rivals. Three tecnicos emerged to fight against “Puerto Rico”, who despite all the negativity, came out waving a Puerto Rican flag. Somebody gave the crowd next to the platform food to throw at them ahead of time. Along with all the booing, flying food, and shit talking, everybody started shouting “Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!” I joined them.

The announcer named each of these guys, and they climbed into the ring in what appeared to be grey sleeveless T-shirts and scraggy hair, amidst a horde of boos and cursing. I think they were trying to look like assholes. Lastly was the manager, the deliberately ugly wife of the team leader. She came out, arguing and throwing food back at the crowd. There are a lot of sweet women in the world, and this is not one of them.

The fight escalated pretty quickly as both of the trios battled in a blur of body slams and spin moves, many of which ended up out of the ring. Close to the end, a Mexican Luchador was just starting to get the upper hand on the leader when his ugly wife came out of nowhere, pinning him on the ropes from behind. The Puerto Rican set up for a flying kick. At the last second, the Mexican Luchador broke free, and the Puerto Rican drop kicked his own wife in the stomach. The entire arena went completely nuts.

After all of this, I had to lay down in the dark for a week. Just to process all of the awesome that I got blasted with, wave after freaking wave.

Seriously, do this. Go to Mexico and do this. We have a big Mexican community here in Chicago, and there are some local Lucha fights in the city. I definitely plan to follow up on it. Especially now that I have a better understanding of what they’re doing and where it all started.

This story continues in Mexico City. For better or worse, this trip was coming to an end.