Friday 8 May 2015

Feria de Metepec

Today the plan was to mop up one of the fairs, finish the sightseeing and then to go and watch some Lucha Libre, which I'd finally managed to get tickets for whilst we were staying in Cancun.

The fair was being held in the city of Metepec a couple of hours west of Mexico City. We initially got there at lunchtime to find a sign up saying the fair wouldn't open until 2pm and that the rides wouldn't be open until 6. We didn't want to hang around the car park for 2 hours so took a drive into town to have lunch and kill some time.

We returned back at 2 and made our way through the exhibition hall maze, exactly like we did in Monterey the day before, but the stuff in this one was more interesting 

Some pretty cool carvings.



and in an area famed for its pottery there were some nice clay pieces too. 

The detail on this was mental. How could you possibly ship that without breaking it?

Having done the exhibition hall we walked past the lunch tents and into the fair where we realised the fair was closed. This was strange, why let people in if there was nothing for them to do, it also explained why the food tents were so keen to get people in - they had a captive market with nothing else to do.


Coaster number 1 was a little Gusy ride all wrapped up with nowhere to go.


Down down down, everything was down.






Coaster number 2 was yet another Wacky Worm, the train sitting in the brake run ready but not willing to pick up passengers just yet.



Again, the selection of rides was pretty decent.

and we had a showman this time! I guess with the rides not running they should be called F.A.I.L.?


It's an El Chavo, Cars, Barbie mashup!

"Mummy, I want to sit in Bunny's arsehole" said one child, probably.

The kangaroo ride was undergoing some polishing. It was weird that the cars were facing outwards rather than in the direction of travel.




Coaster number 3 was a large zyklon ride, called rather imaginatively "Roller Coaster".
All of it was shut, operators were about, just not opening anything up. 
A quick check of Google Translate revealed that that the sign outside the park had been ambiguous.
"Rides open until 6" we'd taken to mean they close at 6, when in fact it meant they'd open at that time. So we were in a bit of a quandary, we couldn't wait til 6 because we wouldn't make it back to Mexico City in time for the Wrestling or do we sit and hope the rides open earlier.

We went for the latter. 


This was our home for what felt like eternity. Sat on the carousel, which to be honest had some really nice custom bikes on it. I quickly got bored so went exploring.

One of the food tents was themed around Lucha Libre with some nice wrestler cartoons on the back wall La Parka, the skeleton guy is one of the most well known wrestlers here in Mexico.


Table Football is definitely popular in Mexico, I think this had been the third fair with a stage full of these tables.


Weird shooting game featuring mini stages of puppets to get the punters attention.

"WHY CAN'T I RIDE ANYTHING - HULK SMASH"
(we were wearing our frustration very well it has to be said)

A cartoony interpretation of London





There were some Voladors doing some performances close to the entrance. Watching them set up and then fall down killed some time and I did go to collect the others to watch this rather than watching a load of closed rides.

This became my favourite attraction of the day. The girl's machine gun delivery on the microphone was captivating and hooked us in as we decided to play a game. They were very good at ensuring all the lanes were taking before starting the race.

and who won? Me! Lane 4 came in first in our race and I got to pick my prize. I went for one of the Rastabananas who accompanied me for the remainder of the day.

It took a little bit of waiting but at 4pm something amazing happened. Realising there were a lot of families annoyed at nothing being open some event organisers were seen speaking to the showmen and soon after the covers started coming off and the rides were opened. Wow!

First up was the little Gussy ride. Tick!


Then it was the time for the Wacky Worm, Number 10!!
Actually not, when we got back to the UK Thomas broke the news that this was the same coaster that we'd ridden earlier on in the trip at the Feria Maravatio (the one I said to remember the front plates of on that page, compare them to the earlier picture of the ride here). This is one of the downsides to doing so many fairs. You have to watch for duplicates.



But we were certain the Galaxi ride was new and we were the first to ride this. Rather interestingly as we were getting off it a crowd had formed and were following us. It's the Pied Piper effect again.

So today was a clear case of our patience being rewarded and we actually came away with a little of time to fill before the wrestling started. So we went and did one more piece of sightseeing.


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