Alborache

So the day finally arrived. After many, many years of waiting and wanting to go to La Tomatina, after narrowly missing out on attending last year I am finally here!!

I've chosen to attend La Tomatina with the Fanatics crew. There are 20,000 people descended upon the small streets on Bunol today and it was awesome.

We’re up early, which did not bode well for those who drank too much at the pre-festival party last night. The buses leave for Bunol at 6:30am. It’s about a 1 hour drive there, so we sleep for the first half and then receive maps, wristbands and information about the day.

It’s a short pilgrimage through the town to reach the start of the fight. We pass buy many locals trying to sell us waterproof cameras, goggles, money belts etc, plus stalls selling sangria and sandwiches.

We go through two gates, but security isn’t that tight, also we’re carrying next to nothing but a camera or two. Being 3 hours early means that we had the opportunity to roam around the street of the fight. It is much longer then I anticipated and winds up a hill. There is a small square at the top, which is the biggest area.

Tarps line the storefronts of the street and locals lean over their balconies throwing water over the revellers below. As 9am approaches there are enough people in the street that the enthusiastic and brave ones decided to try to climb the greasy pole for the legendary ham. The pole is probably like 3 inches thick with lard, and it gets flung out across the crowds. You have to duck every time you see a piece coming.

And I mean brave, because this bit is brutal. Those climbing up the pole stand on anything below including, heads, shoulders, and backs. A human ladder / pile begins to grow until gravity takes over and they all slide down the greasy pole in this mass. It’s so funny!

The cheers get louder as someone gets closer to the top. Guys and girls were going at it trying to reach the top, sometimes as a team, other times it was all for one. The funniest would’ve been a man who showed up naked with only a bum bag on. He first up gave us a willy dance before trying to climb the pole hahaha. He appeared more the once.

As it reached 11am the crowds grew really thick and it was very compact. As the trucks, carrying the tomatoes and lucky people throwing tomatoes into the crowd, began their procession we were all pushed the sides to let them through. At one stage I was so packed in that I could left my legs off the ground and not move at all! All I could think of was how many people were involuntarily peeing right now haha.

There were 7 trucks in total that took to the streets and about 150 tones of tomatoes. This all took place in the first half hour, the second half hour was 30 mins of tomoato soup being thrown everywhere. People swimming up stream on tomatoes, targeting people with the sloppy mess the tomatoes had become. And of course taking as many photos as possible.

It was just brilliant! My goggles did not last very long. They got foggy first and then just smashed off as the tomatoes where thrown from the trucks. But that didn’t matter too much. I did cope one or two unsquished tomatoes to the head, but no permanent damage – phew!

As the second canon fired, the first to announce the start of the fight, the second to announce the end, we slowly made our way through the slop to find some water and our meeting spot. I couldn’t see my feet once I stood in the street because the tomato juices were so high!

Locals are out in the street trying to make a few euros by charging people to use their hose to wash off with. However, the ever frugal backpacker was not in for this, and a number of the crowd, including myself, found ourselves a local stream and washed off in there. To say I came out clean would be a massive understatement. It was one giant dirty bath with 50 people all washing their tomato juices off!

Once sort of clean we walked up to the meeting point for half an hour. There were beers, sausages and pizzas for sale as we sat in the sun reliving what we’d just done. We made our way back through the streets and neighbours now selling BBQed meats to the buses, where we changed before climbing aboard for our journey home.

Often I’ve had times on this trip when I’ve been looking forward to something for a long time and it’s been an underwhelming experience. Not this time though! Possibly because someone scared me about having my clothes torn off and it being a bit aggressive. It’s safe to say that I was in the busiest section, near the pole and it was fine. Only people I saw with no clothes had done that themselves.

Overall, it was just awesome! Mainly its just tourists, so I can’t really say it was a legitimate Spanish festival, but it was fab. I highly recommend it, if you’re thinking about going.

Thanks La Tomatina!

P.S - It's Dan's birthday today, Happy Birthday bro!Read more