La Tomatina

August 26th-28th

"La Tomatina" is an annual festival held in the little town of Buñol, Spain about 40km outside of the major metropolis, Valencia.  The town's population of 3,000 people swells to 40,000 as thousands of tourists and Spaniards invade Buñol to participate in what I imagine to be the worlds largest food fight.  Over 150,000 kilos of tomatoes are dropped into the streets thus ensuing a purely hedonistic, frenzied, tomato-soaked, hour-long fiesta.  This is a terribly ostentatious display of waste, but having survived "La Tomatina" I find it safe to say that the hour long tomato fight was the most fun I have ever had.  I'll try my best to articulate what occurred but "La Tomatina" is best understood by looking at the photos. 

August 26th

After we finished classes in the morning, I  went to speak with our ILP professors.  In order to attend "La Tomatina" we would have to miss class and ask the professors for permission.  Initially, they didn't want to give us permission to go.  No absences are allowed from ILP and for them to give us an exception might set a bad precedent.  I told them I understood, but emphasized the fact that although I considered my education to be above all else and that I had come to Spain to be a student, I also stressed the importance of traveling and experiencing the culture.  I didn't know the next time I'd be able to return to Spain and that I wanted to make the most of this year.  We would not miss that much class as one of the professors was absent.  After considering it, the professors gave us 1 day (the ILP factors in 1 "free" absence for each student although we are not supposed to know that).  No matter what, we had to be back and ready for class Thursday morning.

We had the green light and ran immediately back to our rooms to purchase our tickets.  I paid 85 euros for a 9 hour bus ride from Granada to Valencia.  9 hours didn't seem so bad at the time and we planned on sleeping on the bus.  Our bus left at 9:30pm and would get to Valencia by 7:00am.

That afternoon we went back out to get our photos taken for our classes with our monitores (we have to turn in photos of ourselves so that the professors know who we are).  I received a call from Blake saying that Ryan's ticket had not been processed correctly that he would have to go to the bus station directly in order to buy a ticket for a later bus.  We would have to use our time waiting for Ryan to get to Valencia to find a way to get to Buñol.

Back at the Residencia we "packed" what we would be taking.  I had brought two Pelican water proof cases which I put my wallet, copy of passport, and cellphone inside.  All four of us would share one back pack.  We only wore sandals, a swimsuit, and one t-shirt.  We planned on going shirtless during the tomato fight.  We ate a fast dinner down at the dining hall and called a taxi to take us to the bus station.

At the bus station we met some other young people who were also going to Tomatina.  Two kids from England and Whales and a young couple from Canada who were finishing their backpacking tour of Europe with Tomatina.

I had good intentions of sleeping on the bus to Valencia, but the 9 hours were tediously long.  A ton of stops, an indirect route, crying baby's and loud people made for a difficult ride.

August 27th

Tired and hungry we got to Valencia at 7:00 in the morning.  Even though Ryan's bus had left two hours later, he would only get in to Valencia a 1/2 hour later as he had taken a more direct route.  We should have taken his bus.  Anyway, we scouted out ways to get to Buñol and found a direct us there for 3 euro.  Ryan arrived and we bought our tickets to Buñol.  I slept a little on the 1 hour bus ride to Buñol.

We knew we were into something out of the ordinary as at 8:30 in the morning the streets were teeming with thousands of people.  Everyone was drinking and hundreds of people were wearing costumes or matching outfits.

Stripping off our shirts, we put the rest of our valuables in the backpack.  We would just wear our sandals and bathing suits as we knew everything would get ruined.

We followed the crowd down the ill to the center of the town.  Heading through the mass of people on crowded cobblestone city streets, we tried to stick together and find a place to go if we got separated.

At this point I am unable to fully articulate the experience.  At the center of the town was a large pole soaked in grease and covered in thick fat.  At the top was a ham.  I'm not sure what was the significance of this event as the tomato fight would start at 12:00 no matter what.  It was basically the most ridiculous thing ever as hundreds of sweaty, stupid people (almost all men, the few girls who went up were groped terribly) tried to climb the pole to get the ham.  They would make a pyramid at the base, with other people climbing on their faces to get to the top.  No teamwork, just anarchy, as the person on top would try to knock off some fat then would slide down the poll, crushing the base, or being ripped off the poll in the process by the next rabid person.

This kept the crowd entertained for hours and even during the tomato fight, people would try and climb the poll.  Our friend Alan tried to climb the poll so we separated for a second as Alan tried to climb and Blake, Ryan, and I went to try and get something to drink at the bar.  All of the buildings were covered in plastic and the residents were on their roofs watching the teeming mob.  They would spray the mob with hoses and shout encouragements to the pole climbers.

The bar just had a window opened to hand out beer and water.  Ryan and Blake each bought a beer and as Ryan was about to drink, a soaking wet rolled up shirt through the air and cut his beer in two soaking me and the surrounding people in beer.  This started a mini "alcohol fight" as everyone began throwing their beer and sangria into the air.  I was soaked and hadn't even seen a tomato.

At some point along this ridiculous timeline, a man in one of the apartments threw a tomato into the mob, a seriously taboo act before the actual fight begins.  The mob through beer and shirts at his apartment, so the drunk man went into his house and started throwing chairs and eventually a full sized table into the crowd.  This turned the dumb mob into an angry, dumb mob as some people climbed up the scaffolding and started  breaking the windows on this apartment.  No one was hurt, but I don't know how much property damage, both self-inflicted and not, the man received.  This was the most stupid and violent act I witnessed throughout the day.

We pushed our way back to center and luckily ran into Alan who had been bruised pretty badly in his attempt to get the ham.  We made sure that we were holding on to one another as if were to get lost it would be nearly impossible to find each-other. 

And then, it started.  Driving down the street were 5 dump trucks filled to the brim with Tomatoes.  In the back were about 20 people who were chucking tomatoes at the crowd.  After the trucks got to a certain point, they would dump the backs and thole load of tomatoes would fall into the street. 

Thus ensued a full-fledged hour of tomato ridiculousness as the entire street erupted into one soaking, slimy, red mass.  I was hit with tomatoes from all sides.  I picked them off the streets and through them at the passing trucks and arbitrary victims.  Our group proceeded to unload most of the tomatoes on ourselves as we would squeeze the juice into each other's hair before chucking the rest of the tomatoes at someone else.  During this time I was the "combat photographer" as I used Blake's second camera as the sacrificial lamb to take photos during the melee.  The lens eventually became so soaked with tomatoes that it stopped functioning but were were able to salvage the memory card which was all that mattered.

In the midst of the fray we met two girls from University of Washington who we helped "protect" from the incoming tomatoes.  We really didn't move that much during the course of the hour, but we had to push and brace ourselves just o stand up.  soon the floor became a knee high tomato bath.  People began scooping up the gloppy mess and hurling it at one another.  Ryan and one of the UW girls got down in the street and started making "tomato angels".  They were completely covered in the rising tide of gazpacho soup.

And then as spontaneously as it had started, it stopped.  A cannon blast signaled the end of the battle.  Now came the next bit of insanity as 40,000 sweaty, slimy, tomato-soaked, people shoved, squirmed, and slid to get out of the streets.  I was partially blind as my eyes were soaked with tomato juice and I couldn't rub them clean as my hands were even worse.  We made sure we were all together and contributed to the mob mentality by pushing as hard as we could.

From the rooftops, people were spraying us with hoses and throwing large buckets of water.  Some splashed my face, but it was not enough to get rid of the tomato paste on my face.

We cut down a side street away from the crowd and followed the winding streets and passing clean people down to the river where we jumped in and knocked off a lot of the tomato.  Our communal backpack had some how survived, physically, but the inside contents not in my water proof cases were destroyed.  The backpack itself was gross as the tomatoes had been ground into the fabric.  My lonely planet tour book was part papier mache but seemed salvageable.  Our camera wouldn't even turn on.

We made it back up the hill and tried to find a bus or train to Valencia.  The buses weren't running and the train was  a 3 hour wait.  Our bus back to Granada was at 6:15 and it was 2:30.  We ended up popping 50 euro for a cab, and with the driver doing some extremely illegal maneuvers, we were able to get back to Valencia by 3:30. 

We ate lunch and looked at some of the photos we had taken while we waited for our bus.  

August 28th

The bus ride back was long and tiring, but I got to look at the Spanish country side which was nice.  We got back to Granada by 4am and took a taxi back with another crazy driver to the residencia.  

Recounting the stories and sharing the pictures with the other students made me even more happy that I had done it.  The professors were happy we had had a good time and even enjoyed looking at our pictures.  I think I did well on my first presentation for my conversation class as well.  I had to talk about a film or a novel, so I chose Pedro Almódovar's "Volver" and shared my essay that I had written on the bus.

That afternoon we met up with our monitores for an in depth tour of Sacramonte, the area fully of caves, flamenco bars, and a lot of gypsy history, and then to the Albaycín, Granada's Arab quarter filled with beautiful tea shops and spectacular views of the Alhambra.  That night, I slept well as I recharged after such a crazy, spontaneous, fantastic trip.