Suspended for two weeks as anti-government protests and blockades rocked El Alto, the cholitas luchadores are back on the canvas at Sharks of the Ring wrestling club.
With roads blocked and many afraid to leave their homes in the city more than 13,000 feet above sea level, the Sunday high-altitude wrestling matches were canceled for a fortnight.
The raucous crowd of elderly men, young women and parents with small children heckle and hurl insults as the indigenous women wrestlers, wearing traditional multilayered "pollera" skirts and long braids, flip, kick, punch and pull each other's hair in a chaotic show that often spills outside the ring onto the pavement.
To warm-up for her mixed pairs fight against Yujra, the plump wrestler performs a couple of running somersaults on the canvas, revealing the lacy layers of her pollera and her underwear to the scores of spectators.
The sight of male and female wrestlers stomping, beating, choking and spraying water on each other does not bother the crowd as they egg on the performers to go even further.
