Big Adventures, Little World

The early night proved to be one of the best decisions as the next morning Shannon and I felt great whereas the others could barely get up, let alone make their way out and onto the bus for the hour or so bus ride to Bunol, where the La Tomatina festival was held. It was about 8am when we arrived in Bunol and off we went walking to get down to where all the action was going to be. It was a long walk and mostly downhill through the small city and there was people everywhere. It was warming up to be a beautiful day as well. Most people had cheap shirts or singlets and board shorts and shoes on as everything was going to get destroyed from what we had been told. (It was true, but more on that later).

Mark, Sam, Shannon, Simone and I finally got down to the bottom of the hill and there was already masses of people around so we started pushing our way through where we found our other friends from the tour, Bec and Ingrid so we decided to stop there and hang out with them. We had also planned to try and find Kate, Dung and Luke but because of the massive crowds and the fact we were on different tours we couldn’t manage to find them. Also the fact we didn’t take any phones or anything with us because otherwise it would be ruined. SO there we were, waiting around at about 8:30 in the morning, and the tomato fight not starting until 11. So what else was there to do but drink sangria of course! There were little shops that lined the street where you could get drinks, so that’s what we did. As we all stood around there was chanting, singing, people climbing balconies, all kinds of things being thrown, and all while the locals looked on from their rooftops and sprayed water down on everyone. They had also cover their houses with shade cloth like mesh to try reduce the effects the tomatoes would have, but I’m sure they would still get covered in the juice to some extent.

It wasn’t until about 9:30-10:00am when the giant pole (about 10 metres high) was brought out and covered in grease and raised with a leg of ham atop it. I’m not sure what the significance of it is, but the idea is that the tomato fight won’t start until someone has climbed to the top of the pole and retrieved the ham, although, after about an hour if no one has reached it, then the festival will start anyway. SO we watched and waited as many people tried to climb to the pole to no avail. Many people would get as high as they can just to get as much grease off the pole for someone else to have a go, and even get shirts thrown up to them to wipe it off. People would climb on others shoulders and then someone on top of their shoulders as well just to try and get as high as possible. Someone eventually got high enough to touch the ham, but for some reason chose not to grab it off the top, instead just falling back to the ground. The funniest thing though was a guy near us who said he was going to climb the pole naked, so as we urged him on to do it, he eventually did, stripping his shorts off and walking the 20-30 metres to the pole naked. We hadn’t seen him climb, but then all of a sudden there he was as we all pointed out, “It’s naked guy!” He didn’t get to the top, but it sure was funny, and he even managed to get a mate to hold his shorts so he didn’t have to go the rest of the day naked.

Eventually, with no one getting the ham, the siren sounded for the start of the tomato fight. So the trucks full of the tomatoes started rolling through to main street. First thing we noticed was the smell. It was disgusting. It was like vomit, but worse. I felt sorry for all the people who still weren’t feeling great from the night before, because if they hadn’t vomited already, I’m sure the smell would have made most of them. It’s no wonder that these tomatoes are only grown for the fight and aren’t good for eating the way they smell that bad. I think that half of them must have been rotten, as there was no other way they could have been THAT bad! The next thing was as the trucks made their way down the street, everyone had to get out of the way of them, which considering we were all already squashed up against each other, and it wasn’t easy. So squish and squish everyone did until there was enough room for the truck to make its way through. Once the trucked passed though, it was a mad rush by everyone to get in behind the truck where all the tomatoes where being shovelled out for everyone to pick up and throw. I dived down there a few times grabbing as many as I could and then launching them into the crowd, and also keeping a few to slam into Mark and Sam’s heads! The trucks continued to go by with the tomatoes, juices and smell all getting worse. In total there were 5 or 6 truckloads of tomatoes come through, and as each one did, the whole crowd would move out the way and then back to where they were as one. It was difficult just to stay on our feet! The people sitting on the top of the trucks and dumping loads of tomatoes on you didn’t help either, but luckily, after each truck went through, there was water cannons shooting water over everyone and because of this we came out of it reasonably clean after each truck passed. It was just mayhem and I ended up losing everyone but then eventually found Sam and Simone again before the last truck came through.

Getting out was another battle in itself as we stood there ankles deep in tomato juice and whoever knows what else, surrounded by people, barely able to move or even lift our arms up to throw tomatoes. We kept an eye out for the others we were with but couldn’t see them anywhere so we started moving with the crowd making our way back up the main street. It took us nearly 45 minutes to get back to the main square, which wasn’t all that far away, there were just that many people. As we were making our way back there were locals at the front of their houses or hanging off their balconies with hoses washing people off. So we managed to get a few quick hose downs and kept moving. Once in the main square we decided to ditch our shoes, wash ourselves off a bit more then keep making our way back to the bus. By the time we got there we were completely dried out and all stunk like tomatoes. So it was back onto the bus like that and we were on our way back to Valencia, where most of us just slept all the way back.

Thanks to sleep, it felt like we were back at the hotel in no time and it was straight to the shower. We all felt disgusting and couldn’t wait to get the tomato juice off and washed from our hair. My hair felt horrible, and I could barely even get my hand through it because it was soaked with so much tomato and juice. I had to wash it about 3 times, and I think I ended up showering about 4 times before going to bed that night. After that we headed up stairs to the rooftop pool to chill out before heading out again that night. We sat around the pool with other Aussies telling our stories from the morning and was interesting hearing everyone else accounts from different places throughout the main street.

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