The end of the year is upon us and with that the holidays. So, I thought to myself, is there any festivity around this time of year that involves boxing? Turns out, there is. Kind of.
Meet Santo Thomas, a Peruvian town 12,000 feet above sea level, and where the Takanakuy fighting festival takes place.
Life is punishing in these mountains, access to services is almost impossible because the town is extremely deep in the Peruvian Andes so people has no way to get commodities as a city or other towns could get. Not even Peruvian law jurisdiction has basically any effect in this region, so disputes had to be resolved in other ways.
The thing is that these people are fighters and in this festival, everyone fights, even the elderly and children. But, what this has anything to do with any holiday whatsoever? Well, for whatever reason this festival takes place in the early morning of Christmas; there is previous drinking and to get in the mood the several days before and in Christmas day they go at it.
Why have these kind of festival, thought? Well, as previously stated, life in those mountains is unforgiven in every aspect, so this is merely a way to blow off steam and, I guess, to have fun. There are rules, by the way; to there is legitimate notion to all this.
I can think of worse ways to spend Christmas.