I'm on my 3rd round of soaking my laundry (using about 4 times as much soap in each bucket as I normally do), and yet, my bathroom, entryway, and the public stairs that are unlucky enough to share the wall with my bathroom window all still reek of rotten tomatoes. It's been just over 3 days since me, and 20,000 other people, spent an hour throwing four dump trucks worth of tomatoes at each other for an hour in a small town outside of Valencia, Spain, and I still feel like I've had my ass kicked in and I would like to sleep for 24 hours uninterrupted.
The La Tomatina Festival is commonly known to be the worlds largest food fight, held annually on the last Wednesday of August in Bunol, Spain, a small town of (on a non-Tomatina day) around 9,000 residents. 2013 was the first year that the festival has decided to require the purchase of tickets to enter the event, in an effort to control the size of the crowd, mainly. However, when you realize that the number they chose to be the appropriate number of people was 20,000, you can see what kind of event this is (previous years have reached upwards of 40,000 people, 4 times the population of the town that holds the festival). To this day, nobody actually knows how the festival ever started, but the story I like the most involves a group of boys back in 1945 that started their own food fight on the street, and kept up the tradition ever since. The town has officially supported the event since 1950, and believe me, it's amazing to see the community truly support such a messy and insane event, and openly welcome 20,000 (mostly) 20-something's to make a giant mess of their home.
Our day started by waking up at 5:45AM at our hotel in Valencia, and out the door by 6:15. We headed out in a state of excited anticipation, with only our imaginations to tell us what was laying ahead of us. We hopped onto the subway and headed to the other side of town in order to catch our 7AM tour bus to head 35 kilometers inland to Bunol. I managed to doze off a little on the drive, and when I woke up, we were surrounded by hills on all sides, in a little town tucked into the countryside, as cute and quaint as they come -- Except for the swarming of the thousands of people who had already arrived and the blaring music coming from a Red Bull tent sent up in the middle of the field. It was somewhere around 8AM, and the party was already on full blast. We all grabbed a mojito and an energy drink from the make-shift bar and got in line to trade in our tickets for wrist bands.
Wrist bands acquired. Mojitos and/or cheap beers drank. A few trips into "nature" to avoid long bathroom lines completed. We've got our swim goggles hanging around our necks and our white shirts on, ready to be ruined in the fight. We've managed to add a guy from India and a girl from China who may be the smallest full grown human I've ever seen to our group at this point, and we're ready to roll. We head up into the heart of the town, and follow the buildings covered in tarps to know where we need to be. Around 9:55AM, we cross through the police checkpoint into the official tomato-throwing zone, where we're checked to make sure we aren't bringing in any beer cans or other hard objects that shouldn't be thrown in the fight.
As per tradition, a greased pole is erected for the festival with a ham at the top of the pole. At 10AM, people start trying to climb the pole, with the intention of knocking the ham down. We're lost in the crowd and not able to witness the scramble for the ham, but we know it's happening somewhere. A lightning-bolt flashes and thunder rumbles overhead, followed shortly by a torrential downpour of a chilling rain. Men are (literally) tearing their shirts off their chest, local residents are throwing buckets of water off their balconies onto the crowd, and I swear, I've never felt energy like this. We dance in the street and sing "Ole! Ole!" like we're at a futball match, already soaking wet before the fight ever starts. Suddenly, the water cannon goes off, followed by the roar of an excited crowd of 20,000. I look down at my watch. It's 10:46AM. Someone has knocked the ham down, and the first truck of tomatoes is already working it's way through the crowd. I quickly strap my goggles to my face before I get any tomato juice in my eyes, and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.
The festival utilizes a total of 4 dump trucks filled with tomatoes, which ends up coming out to a little more than 40 metric tons of tomatoes for the fight. The rules of the game are as follows:
1. You must crush the tomatoes before you throw them.
2. You may not throw anything other than tomatoes.
3. You must move when the dump truck comes through the crowd.
4. You may not rip off someone else's shirt (not really followed all that well...)
5. When the second water cannon goes off, exactly 1 hour after the first, all throwing must stop.
The dump trucks came through the crowd once about every 10 to 15 minutes or so, which worked well at keeping the excitement up. Just as you started to run out of whole tomatoes to throw, a whole new batch appeared, and we got worked into a frenzy all over again. La Tomatina is an experience you can never have rivaled by anything else you do in life. It is the ultimate definition of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and believe me, once is definitely enough. I have a vivid memory of getting nailed in the side of the head by a tomato while my friend ground another tomato into my hair and down my shirt, and suddenly thinking "How the hell did my life get me to this exact spot right now?!" It is surreal to say the least.
After the last truck came through the crowd, a sudden unexplained death crush of people started pushing back down the street towards where we came into the festival. By death crush, I literally mean I've never been so legitimately afraid of having my ribs crushed as I was at that moment in time. The last time I saw the Chinese girl that was with us was about 15 minutes into the fight as she huddled shaking in the middle of the mob of people. As we were pushed down the street, our group, which had done well at keeping together through the fight, began to be pushed apart. I grabbed one friend's hand and we held onto each other for dear life, protected behind us by the Indian man that was with us, who had one hand on each of our shoulders to keep us from being crushed too hard. Seeing a side-street coming up to our right, my friend cried "Go!!" and I made a mad cut to my side and pushed as hard as I could until I was able to breath again. We lost our Indian friend in the escape, and never saw him again.
Once we had escaped to the side-street, I finally pushed my goggles up off my face for the first time, finally getting a clear look of the chaos the festival had left behind in it's wake. Flowing freely down all the streets throughout the entire town was a river of what looked almost like pasta sauce. In places you were wading through calf or knee deep rivers of crushed tomatoes (no, I'm not exaggerating), and the smell and taste of tomatoes filled your mouth and nose. This is the point in time where I truly gained a respect for the people of Bunol, Spain, who are so gracious enough to allow this event to happen to their town every year, and, once the throwing stops, their hospitality came even more to light.
Down every street we passed, local residents stood in their driveways with their garden hoses, ready to hose down the thousands of people lined up for a rinse. Back on the main street of the fight, locals were still throwing buckets of water off their balconies onto the crowd, and the fire department began their work of spraying down the streets while workers squeegeed mashed tomatoes into the sewers. Following a crowd of people, my friend and I headed down the hill to the river that runs through the middle of Bunol, ready to, if nothing else, get the tomato chunks out of my shoes. We joined a couple hundred other people, stripped down to our underwear, and climbed into the river to wash off, and rinse our clothes out, as much as possible at the time.
Once we were "clean" we headed back to the edge of town where we first arrived, grabbed a beer and some food, and waited under the Red Bull tent, which had been pre-decided to be our meeting point in case of separation for our group of eight. The sky started to open up again and drizzle some more, and we sat shivering and discussing how grateful we were for that side-street we found, and wondering what the fate of the rest of our group was. Finally unable to handle the bone-chilling cold anymore, I wandered back into the crowd in search of any T-shirts left available in adult sizes, and threw down 5 Euro's on the only thing left in my size: a neon green tee with a silhouette of someone dancing with the words "Something is moving..." printed at the bottom, with "Tomatofight" at the top. It made no sense, but I immediately stripped off my soaking wet tank top and was grateful for how soft and warm it felt (I think I forgot how soft T-shirts are supposed to be after hand washing my clothes for so long).
After we gathered the rest of our group, we mustered the energy for one last mob fight, and, along with a few thousand other people, tried to get on a bus back to Valencia. Each time a bus pulled in, we took off like thoroughbreds at the Kentucky Derby and ran after the bus, eventually getting a good enough position to climb into the warm and dry bus back to the city. After a very thorough shower which we completed in teams to help check for missed tomatoes, the only thing left to do was pass out for 4 hours.
To anyone thinking of attending La Tomatina, here is my advice:
Do it. Do it right. Do it well. It's an experience every young person should have. Go all out for it. And damn it, only do it once.
The La Tomatina Festival is commonly known to be the worlds largest food fight, held annually on the last Wednesday of August in Bunol, Spain, a small town of (on a non-Tomatina day) around 9,000 residents. 2013 was the first year that the festival has decided to require the purchase of tickets to enter the event, in an effort to control the size of the crowd, mainly. However, when you realize that the number they chose to be the appropriate number of people was 20,000, you can see what kind of event this is (previous years have reached upwards of 40,000 people, 4 times the population of the town that holds the festival). To this day, nobody actually knows how the festival ever started, but the story I like the most involves a group of boys back in 1945 that started their own food fight on the street, and kept up the tradition ever since. The town has officially supported the event since 1950, and believe me, it's amazing to see the community truly support such a messy and insane event, and openly welcome 20,000 (mostly) 20-something's to make a giant mess of their home.
Our day started by waking up at 5:45AM at our hotel in Valencia, and out the door by 6:15. We headed out in a state of excited anticipation, with only our imaginations to tell us what was laying ahead of us. We hopped onto the subway and headed to the other side of town in order to catch our 7AM tour bus to head 35 kilometers inland to Bunol. I managed to doze off a little on the drive, and when I woke up, we were surrounded by hills on all sides, in a little town tucked into the countryside, as cute and quaint as they come -- Except for the swarming of the thousands of people who had already arrived and the blaring music coming from a Red Bull tent sent up in the middle of the field. It was somewhere around 8AM, and the party was already on full blast. We all grabbed a mojito and an energy drink from the make-shift bar and got in line to trade in our tickets for wrist bands.
Wrist bands acquired. Mojitos and/or cheap beers drank. A few trips into "nature" to avoid long bathroom lines completed. We've got our swim goggles hanging around our necks and our white shirts on, ready to be ruined in the fight. We've managed to add a guy from India and a girl from China who may be the smallest full grown human I've ever seen to our group at this point, and we're ready to roll. We head up into the heart of the town, and follow the buildings covered in tarps to know where we need to be. Around 9:55AM, we cross through the police checkpoint into the official tomato-throwing zone, where we're checked to make sure we aren't bringing in any beer cans or other hard objects that shouldn't be thrown in the fight.
 |
| The streets flowed with tomato mush, knee deep in places |
The festival utilizes a total of 4 dump trucks filled with tomatoes, which ends up coming out to a little more than 40 metric tons of tomatoes for the fight. The rules of the game are as follows:
1. You must crush the tomatoes before you throw them.
2. You may not throw anything other than tomatoes.
3. You must move when the dump truck comes through the crowd.
4. You may not rip off someone else's shirt (not really followed all that well...)
5. When the second water cannon goes off, exactly 1 hour after the first, all throwing must stop.
Once we had escaped to the side-street, I finally pushed my goggles up off my face for the first time, finally getting a clear look of the chaos the festival had left behind in it's wake. Flowing freely down all the streets throughout the entire town was a river of what looked almost like pasta sauce. In places you were wading through calf or knee deep rivers of crushed tomatoes (no, I'm not exaggerating), and the smell and taste of tomatoes filled your mouth and nose. This is the point in time where I truly gained a respect for the people of Bunol, Spain, who are so gracious enough to allow this event to happen to their town every year, and, once the throwing stops, their hospitality came even more to light.
Down every street we passed, local residents stood in their driveways with their garden hoses, ready to hose down the thousands of people lined up for a rinse. Back on the main street of the fight, locals were still throwing buckets of water off their balconies onto the crowd, and the fire department began their work of spraying down the streets while workers squeegeed mashed tomatoes into the sewers. Following a crowd of people, my friend and I headed down the hill to the river that runs through the middle of Bunol, ready to, if nothing else, get the tomato chunks out of my shoes. We joined a couple hundred other people, stripped down to our underwear, and climbed into the river to wash off, and rinse our clothes out, as much as possible at the time.
 |
| Me and a friend, tomato covered and happy. |
After we gathered the rest of our group, we mustered the energy for one last mob fight, and, along with a few thousand other people, tried to get on a bus back to Valencia. Each time a bus pulled in, we took off like thoroughbreds at the Kentucky Derby and ran after the bus, eventually getting a good enough position to climb into the warm and dry bus back to the city. After a very thorough shower which we completed in teams to help check for missed tomatoes, the only thing left to do was pass out for 4 hours.
To anyone thinking of attending La Tomatina, here is my advice:
Do it. Do it right. Do it well. It's an experience every young person should have. Go all out for it. And damn it, only do it once.
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