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High Flying Travel: Inside the World of Bolivia's Cholitas

Where: Bolivia
October 16, 2008 at 11:00 AM | by | Comments (0)

Though the best part of "Amazing Race" is all the drama between teams--and teammates--we're sometimes left wanting a little more in terms of the cool stuff racers get to check out on the course.

But National Geographic presciently published a piece on Bolivia's female wrestlers in September, which fleshes out the story of the cholitas:

In the cold, treeless, comfortless city of El Alto ("high point"), 13,000 feet above sea level, there are one million people, most of whom fled here over the past three decades to escape the countryside's pervasive misery.

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Many sell clothes, onions, pirated DVDs, Barbie dolls, car parts, small desiccated mammals for magic rituals. The poorest alteños employ themselves as beasts of burden. All of them battle hopeless traffic, a constant scarcity of fuel and water, the dull fatigue of numbing labor, the odds that are stacked against them. When they're done working, they need to play.

Checking out a match is easy enough: At the event National Geographic attended, three rows of seats were full up with foreigners, and tickets were selling for $1.50.

Related Stories:
· Bolivia's Wrestlers [NG]
· Amazing Race 13 Map [Jaunted]



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