Highlights from Mexico, Part 5 of 5

We promised each other we wouldn't talk about it, but....I can't help myself. Eric and I made a very, very bad decision while in Puerto Vallarta:

we went to the Mexican circus.

I don't think this quite makes the list of things that may someday prevent me from running for public office, but it is close.

In our defense, what we didn't know is that going to the circus in Mexico is like going back in time to at least the 1930s, maybe even before.

We were expecting trapeze artists, clown acts, and maybe a parade involving fancy costumes and maybe a well-cared-for elephant or two.

What we got was nauseated. The show centered around a set of once-beautiful and majestic exotic animals that were all so beaten, drugged and exploited that they held their heads low and quietly seethed resentment, just waiting for their chance to gobble up a small Mexican child.

What made it even worse is that it was really amateurish and poorly done: a lot of the tricks didn't work, the animals disobeyed or just seemed confused. The monkeys kept breaking away from the people holding their leashes and fighting. One of the mini-ponies went renegade and ran around the circle the wrong way. The animal trainer Julio Cesar fell off the horse he was riding and was nearly trampled (that actually would have been a highlight - it was hard not to be rooting for the animals instead of the people). The white tiger that they brought out uncaged and unleashed to take photos with small children was so smacked up he kept falling asleep and the animal trainer had to keep poking him with a stick to make him put his head up for the camera.

There was one act that did have promise: they wheeled out an enormous steel cage in the shape of a sphere, into which went one motorcyclist. He went around and around and upside down and it was actually pretty impressive, if somewhat terrifying to watch. When he paused after his loops in the sphere, he was joined by a second motorcyclist, and the two of them zoomed around inside the sphere miraculously not creating a spectacular fireball collision. And then, to my horror, they were joined by a third motorcyclist. Amazingly, after a few minutes of zooming they all emerged alive.

Then came the blow: the three motorcyclists came out to take a bow and took off their helmets and they looked to be 11, 13 and 15 years old. Probably brothers. Definitely none of them was over 16 years old. And then they walked out into the audience with their helmets and begged for money. I wanted to cry.

We were so devastated and ill from this nightmare circus that we thought about leaving early, but I kept holding out hope that maybe redemption lay in the finale.

Not so.

The finale was all of the various performers from the spectacle running out into the ring waving silk flags and bowing. The end.

Let us never speak of it again.