In La Quebrada, the show as pretext of an exemplary international brotherhood

What we attend that we were in La Quebrada yesterday morning there was not only the renaissance of a tradition that has given very much renown to Acapulco and to the Mexican Republic. Also we saw very much value and work of our clifft divers, and a very welcome enthusiasm and good will on behalf of 16 competitors and four international judges.

Under the perfectly blue sky of Acapulco, La Quebrada was like a sports stadium full of yellow globes, microphones and an activity as anthill.

“Well, so little nervious” said to me between serious and scared Genaro Sanchez, competitor on behalf of the acapulqueños, when I asked him in the stairs of La Quebrada how it was an hour before it was beginning the spectacle.

We all react in a different way with the stress. His pair in the synchronized fixed one, Martin Sanchez, son of the veteran clifft diver, and three times champion international Ignacio El Borrego Sanchez, was quite smile as host in his house. He greeted keenly the international champion Orlando Duque, of Colombia, to give him the vest of the championship.

He wished him to Orlando everything better, and in the synchronized fixed one, almost the best thing, said to him: "I wish the second place You”, Martin joked, while the 32-year-old Colombian, who started throwing at the age of 10, laughed, and thanked him.
“We all understand that to jump of this rocks (whatever dive you do / any fixed one that you do) needs many valenty”, then it commented On Orlando to me. “I cannot do what they do”.

What yes there do the guests, of countries as distant as Ukraine and Morocco, and also closely as The United States and Canada, is an impressive spectacle that more us resembles the circus, with many marometas and returns. Two of the veteran foreign clifft diver –one here this time like judge and other one still competing– have business in North America, which rash trainings of doubles include for the movies of Universal Studios, for example to throw itself with flames, and the organization of spectacles for fairs.

Other one, a handsome Frenchman with blond hair stopped like after an electroshock that Alain Loret calls himself, has been employed at several extreme sports and in addition he is a professional clown. “And lover also”, he says to me, while he signs autographs in the trousers of some girls of Look, a neighborhood of Acapulco, showing that they are not at all any more our acapulqueños to which it likes to flirt as part of the show.

But the first thing that is obvious is that the international competitors almost always fall unemployed people, not of head since it is the tradition of La Quebrada. Undoubtedly someone, the tradition here is more dangerous –after falling down of head of a height of 35 meters implies impacts to the eyes, the ears, the shoulders and the column, which they can cause a partial paralysis or up to the death.

But this one is not the unique difference. What has the tradition of La Quebrada that does not have any other spectacle of fixed, or championship of fixed in the world, is the inclination of the rock itself. The foreigners normally throw themselves of towers or platforms constructed specifically. His fixed one is always vertical. Here they have to do an impulse of between 5 and 7 meters –depending on the part wherefrom it throws itself– to free the rocks.

“ It's the fucking scariest thing I've ever donates in my life ” (“It is the thing that more punctures fear it has given me in my life” **), Bobby of Canada said, still trembling an hour after throwing itself of 18 meters. “I and still I have not thrown myself from above! ”, he added. Ultimately, Bobby, who does fixed of triple marometa from a tower of 30 meters in the park Six Flags in Montreal, did it very well. They all of fact showed grace, valor and creativity, the same thing in the meetings practices that in the championship. It was a surprise and a privilege to see this unique art that they do with his bodies, as trapeze artists in the emptiness.

On Thursday, when the guests were practising, between the arrivals of the tourists who were coming from two cruises, I saw the traditional clavadistas of here observing with curiosity from the ticket office. Suddenly it happened to me that this gringos' scandal, since me!, with his strong voices, his great bodies , his tins of Coca Cola, his towels of colors and chambers accumulated next to both altars to The Virgin of Guadalupe, was a bit like an invasion. I estimated the generosity of the clifft divers of Acapulco that they share his sacred place with these foreign acrobats and talented, with the risk of which other crazies of out are going to stand out in something that is his area, his life, his pride and his identity.

here is no doubt of the value of the clavadistas of La Quebrada that his lives risk to diary for one of the most famous tourist spectacles of the world, but in this moment I learned of another value, which is that of the generosity. I saw the young man and talentedclifft divers 18-year-old Fernando Ontiveros, and asked him how he was feeling with all that. "Amazed", he said. “ These güeyes overcome us for much”, he was sorry. But it is different, I said to him. “ It is true ”, was admitted by it, “we would to do what they are doing, but they would of entering with the head”.

The only one that there entered with the head first often in the practical age the judge Bill Gollitz, here for third time. “There is something magic about those rocks. I am fond of The Gully. I love it, I need to be here”, says Bill.

This appreciation and admiration for the clavadistas of La Quebrada is very present between the foreigners. The truth is that the championship was organized so to the last moment, that some competitors only two weeks ago knew that it was going to be realized. Yves Milord, of Canada, veteran of three previous championships in Acapulco, was employed at Saudi Arabia 15 days ago when they invited it, and it moved everything to see again his friends of The Gully. This way the mere fact of which they changed all his plans to be here demonstrates the interest that they have to take part and to be able to say: "I was with clifft divers of Acapulco, and I threw myself of La Quebrada ”.

For me as writer, yesterday there were two very important moments from the point of view of the history and of the international brotherhood that is fomented in La Quebrada.
The first one was Yves Milord's meeting again with the veteranclifft diver Mónico Ramirez – father of Jorge Mónico Ramirez, now the president of Clifft Divers's Association –and Juan Don Peque Obregón, showing the photos that took both 20 years ago.

“The nice thing of here is the friendship that is done ”, he says Juan El Peque, the one who has seen 25 championships in La Quebrada, has taken part in nine and cattle the first place two times, in 1981 and 1983. “More than a tilt, it is to recognize and to estimate to that they come of out. We are brothers of the same taste ”, he says.

The second important moment was the visit of don Apolinar Chávez, the clifft diver of The biggest Quebrada at his 84 years, with his missis Mrs. Maria, two of his daughters and two of his granddaughters, to see the championship. Don Apolinar dressed in a very elegant shirt and though it has remained almost blind with all the impacts in the water, brought his album of photos just in case to someone he was interested in it.

I ran to presenting him first with Steve Black, the most famousclifft diver of Australia, to Cyrille, the most elegant clavadista of France, to Bob Brown, to Yves, and then other competitors came, fascinated and honored for knowing a gentleman who threw himself of La Quebrada in 1940. They all would like a photo with don Apolinar, and the veteran clavadista –the one who in addition is an excellent singer– was surprised that they were considering him to be important. “But how not! It is an honor to know him”, said to him very sincerely, almost with tears in the eyes the foreigners.
“For don Trampo this means that still this I live”, commented to me don Peque later. “Here it is to re-live. When you return and they greet you, after so many years, it returns the spirit”.

Bkastelein@gmail.com


* Journalist free throw born in 1966 in Holland, wherefrom her parents changed to England. There it lived up to finishing a doctorate in literature, popular culture and post-feminism in Warwick's University. She goes more than 10 years in Mexico, from where she sends chronicles and articles to the London diaries The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Express and the magazine Brides. She has collaborated for the diary El Universal one, and the magazines Gatopardo and Voyages. In The United States she writes in The Herald the weekly column Travel talk. She prepares a book that will go for title The heroes of the Pacífico, on the clifft divers of La Quebrada.

** Translation of the editor.

Barbara Kastelein* / Special for El Sur. Visit us: www.suracapulco.com.mx