La Tomatina – The reddest, squishiest place in the world!

Hey guys, it’s been nearly a week since La Tomatina and I’m STILL getting over it all. I’m absolutely spent and am struggling through even basic tasks at work this week J I think I just need some decent sleep and I’ll be right again.

La Tomatina is AWESOME. Oh man, it’s stinky, squishy, dangerous, painful, exciting, hilarious, disgusting and completely unique. I can’t believe the kind of stuff that was going on and how crazy people went, but I think that is all part of the charm. If only I could find some news feeds of it online, I want to try and see if you can see us (we were in a reasonably conspicuous position under a red banner).

Our day started early at 6am with everyone being roused by a bacon and egg breakfast before hitting the road at 7am. The drive was about 2 hours to get there, but as we didn’t know precisely where we were going, or how long it would take, we thought we’d be safe and get there well before the 11am start. Through some good navigating and a little bit of luck we got there without any major incident, and in record time. By 9:00-9:15 am, we were in the town, parked and changed into La Tomatina gear. It’s held in a town called Bunol which is about 45 minutes east of Valencia (Valencia is big, so it’s easy to find on the maps).

All the street around the town are crammed with cars and busses etc and people set up huge sound systems etc in car parks and just get down to partying. Drink stalls are everywhere so a beer is never far away. People also peddle disposable cameras and goggles, so if you wanted you can get it there for a decently inflated price. I took my normal camera into town at the start just for photos and left it at a bag minding stall along with my tshirt etc just before it all started (so I got some shots of the town etc pre-tomato-war). I hadn’t found a waterproof disposable camera so I will have to get photos off others later.

At about 10:00 or so, everyone descends into the one little street where the fight actually takes place. It’s fairly long, say 100 meters, but not very wide at only around 20 meters. Approximately 30000 people pack into this space for the chance to go nuts and it gets very tight! We were lucky in that we got there fairly early and so could force our way quite close to the central point of the street. This gave us a position where we could see the guys trying to climb the greased pole to pull off the ham (this signals the start of the fight), while also being close to a bunch of people with fire hoses (which didn’t come on till later).

Just before 11am, they finally got the ham down and the street was completely packed. Everyone was getting very rowdy with expectation and people started to push around a little. What was actually happening was that a bunch of Spanish guys were starting to go around stripping tshirts off everyone and throwing clothing around. Locals were also starting early and pouring rank water and sangria off the rooftops while getting in early with their own tomatoes.

We’d heard about the forced removal of clothing so most of us were in crap tshirts, or like myself and another guy, just boardies :) We’d written on our backs “SKINS – Tshirts are for women” which got a few cheers from Aussies in the crowd. Speaking of which, Aussies were everywhere! It was like a huge Aussie party. As few of CK’s friends had brought jumpsuits and tshirts with targets drawn on them but they didn’t last long. There were also plenty of people in fancy-dress type stuff with a bunch of guys in full tuxedos, an Elvis or two walking around and even a couple of dudes in nun outfits! They were great value.

For the women out there, yeah the girls did get their clothes ripped off too. Most only lost their tshirts (so wear a bikini!) but some came off worse than that. The majority of this was done during the fight too, not so much at the start. Most of the time it was the Spanish guys being idiots and people would step in and push them off to help the girls, but it wasn’t very girls friendly (go at your own peril). Some girls did get really roughed up (aside from the clothes getting torn, the crowd surges around a little) and very scared.

So finally a massive BOOM erupts from a firecracker and the festival commences. People push forward and we literally got jammed in with our arms locked to our sides. From the end of the street a truck begins to inch forward, pushing the people in front out of the way and forcing people to further crush in around the walls as it passed. The water hoses all came on and we immediately started to get doused with freezing water (but with all those people it was getting hot in the street fast, so it wasn’t all bad). The water jets were strong enough to push you around it you weren’t ready for them.

A bunch of people on the back of the first truck are throwing tomatoes out, but we had no ammo to throw back. Everyone was already getting hammered by balled up wet t-shirts etc already, so they started flying at the truck. Finally the truck got close and they started throwing handfuls out. If you caught em, you had a pristine roma tomato to peg at someone, now that is fun. The truck trundled just past us then stopped, and the back started tipping up. Out of the pack poured a PILE of tomatoes that came easily up to my waist. People didn’t seem to know what to do with them, so they just sort of stood there looking at them. I looked at one of CK’s mates who was a bit crazy like me and we both just waded in.

The tomatoes fully came up past my knees, and people seemed to snap out of their daze and push in too. Within seconds everyone was pushing forward and trying to grab tomatoes to throw. It was so cramped you could barely bend down to pick em up, you had to push someone out of your way first to make room. Once you bent over though, you are in serious danger of getting pushed down into the ‘red ocean’ and basically trampled on. A few people went down and it was probably worse than a mosh pit, they got stuffed up.

I managed to keep my feet though and started throwing everywhere I could. For about 3 minutes I was absolutely blind as tomatoes pelted me and I just bombed them in random directions at people. SO MUCH FUN! We made sure that we deliberately picked out CK and his mates and gave them a few whacks too. After about 5 minutes the tomato level was getting low and it had basically dissolved into a watery mush beneath our feet (the water hoses were going the whole time). Even the mush was great to throw though because it stuck really well. Finally after 15 minutes the ammo was basically gone and Chad (CK’s mate) and I retreated back out to the side of the street. We were absolutely covered in crap but were quickly semi-cleaned up by the fire hoses.

The throwing continued until 12noon, during which 5 trucks came past but none dropped their load in front again. Fortunately plenty were flying around now so ammo was everywhere and wet clothing balls were also there for backup. We were really glad that we just went in on the first truck because towards the end people from the outskirts were pushing in so hard that we were basically sardines in the street. You couldn’t move, much less breathe and I was thankful that I was tall enough to see over most people (although it did make me a bit of a target for tomatoes). This made it even more crazy when the trucks dumped their tomato loads and lots of chicks were forced to run for it as drunken revellers tried to remove their clothing.

Despite it all, it was such awesome fun and plenty of tomatoes were thrown around until right up to the final BOOM as the second firework goes off. It was so awesome. As the street and town begins to clear, you can see people simply covered in junk and an absolute river of napoletana sauce flowing down the street. The smell starts to hit you too as the heat of the sun hits the ‘napoletana river’. The whole place honestly smells like sundried tomatoes! On the way out people were still fighting with the ‘river’ mush which smelt really rank. Fortunately nice locals had their hoses out to wash people off. Somehow in the whole mess, CK managed to score one of the dinner jackets from the tux-dudes - noice!!.

After we had washed off a bit and gotten changed, we headed back into town for a beer and some lunch. The town basically shuts down for it’s usual siesta so all the tourists just sit around a drink. A lot of the people we were with wanted to head to Valencia for a swim to properly wash off. Chad and I were dubious about this as we wanted to stay and drink, but we gave in and headed off after being promised that we’d come back in a couple of hours. In hindsight, the beach was a really good idea and we cleaned up real nice. The issue was that CK’s mates didn’t really want to go back, and eventually Chad, myself and another guy called James had to basically usurp one car (one was a 5 seater, the other a 7 seater) to go back. This left 9 people to squeeze into a 7 seater for 1.5 hours of driving, but too bad (they had promised)! We didn’t do this until 11pm, so we missed the big party that goes on in the afternoon. Although it would basically be just tourists drinking, I would have liked to see it.

Anyway, the reason we did go back was that 3am there are fireworks to mark the end of the festival. We got back to town around midnight (just as the street parties were finishing – PAH!) and walked around. It was actually really nice, they had a full on fair there with carnival rides etc and the local young boys and girls were walking around on dates etc. They were so cute. Some of their older sisters were very cute too J All the locals were hanging out and drinking/eating on plastic tables and chairs etc, we loved it. We parked out arses at a table near the fireworks (you could see them strung up across the street) and waited it out.

At 3am, a crowd of people assembled in the main area of the street in expectation of the start. Some dudes in protective gear and motorbike helmets were suiting up in obvious preparation for the spectacle. We thought we’d just sit there and watch all of them go off as the ropes of fireworks went off and enjoy it. We were dead wrong! The street was cleared out and we wondered exactly what was going to happen when the first signalling firework went off.

The fireworks strung up back and forth across the street were thick bundles wrapped in paper. Inside each of these bundles was 4-5 cigar shaped smaller fireworks. The bundle would catch fire and drop the cigars, these light and shoot off in a direction and loop around a couple of times shooting out sparks. Once the sparks ended it would fly in the direction it was last travelling, wait about 3 seconds then explode with a loud bang (but no sparks). From the end of the street we could see these things going off, and sure it looked pretty nice. The smoke built up quickly though so it obscured things a little. Hopefully you can make out the two types in these photos.

Suddenly one of the motorbike-helmeted-dudes comes running out of the smoke carrying something in his hand. He then chucks this at the crowd. We look at each other for a second and at the thing he’s thrown… it’s small, round… shaped like a cigar… WHAT THE! Yup, it goes off, right in front of everyone! The locals obviously knew this would happen and laughed like anything (they’d already backed off) as all the kids ran for it. It wasn’t too close to us so we got a good look at them and didn’t have to worry too much. But after that, more and more started coming. The crazy-motorbike-dudes were even chasing people and throwing them down alleys and side streets etc to freak out more people. It was hilarious! Some came very close to us and one even went off just near Chad’s feet so he did a little dance for a second like he was in a Western movie and someone was shooting his feet (‘Dance boy, Dance!).

The last two lines of strung up fireworks were different, but we didn’t know what that meant. As the normal ones got to the end, we edged back a little just in case. Finally the flame touched the start of the last two lines… and the whole street erupted. Both lines ignited in less than a second and literally a curtain of fire just dropped out of those things. Some similar to the earlier cigar one dropped but this time they fly off, go off in one large pink burst, then wait 3 seconds and go off again with a huge ‘bang’! There were also ones which just hung there and spewed out sparks like Roman Candles or spun around wildly spraying sparks everywhere.

Chad, James and myself literally had to turn and run for it. The heat was intense and these things were going off all around us. I have an image in my head of Chad running towards me and on one side a cigar-firework flies past shooting sparks, then one flies past on the other side like a slow-motion action sequence in a movie. Unfortunately I was a bit stubborn and backed back for a while trying to keep my camera and the movie I was taking going. A big pink-explosion firework came straight for me and went off right in front of me on the ground. Scared the crap outta me (you can see on the video how close it was), but then, just to make it worse, the remaining firework landed right between my legs and went off with a BANG! There was a huge ruffle of air around my pants (thank goodness it had already done it’s pink-spark-explosion phase) and at that point I ran for it! Almost had to change the underwear after that one! I'm going to try and embed the video in the web page (it's about 25MB, so don't start the download unless you wanna see it), if this doesn't work for you guys then I've uploaded it to YouTube to watch, the URL is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv8eFwRYckE

We stopped a few meters up the road and turned back just in time to see the last ones go off. After that we looked at each other and just started laughing…. it was crazy!!! As we walked back towards the fireworks area to see how it looked we saw a guy who had been quite badly burned. We’d been very lucky to get away without a scratch. Afterwards we were so pumped up that we completely forgot that after the fireworks there is a tradition where they major of the town gives everyone some meat and they all eat it together. Apparently this was for locals only so we shouldn’t have missed out. We cruised back to Calpe (the town we were staying in about one hour south of Valencia) doing 140-150km/h (the motorways are very good in Spain) and crashed out around 6am. What an awesome 24 hours!

The next day things were understandably slow with people getting up late. We couldn’t do much other than get up and get some food from the supermarket. Finally around 5pm we decided that we’d go for a swim near a big rock the guys had found the previous day. This rock juts out into the ocean and so there is a 6 meter or so steep drop to the water. It’s perfect for jumping off! The first few jumps your brain says ‘what are you doing!’, but after that it’s just awesome fun. It’s deep too so there’s no worries about hitting the bottom. I dove off once and did come close to the bottom, so did feet first entries after that. Chad has an awesome party trick where he can do a reverse (inward) backflip… It looked SO brilliant!!!! Oh, with this photo, you can just see my black shorts as we all jumped together. Hopefully this video of Chad backflipping comes out too (if not, the url is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtf76O7e_J4).

That night we had a nice dinner on the beach in a tourist trap type café, but the paella was good (my last of the trip as I had to go home the next day). While there we all had to pick up a shot glass for some festivities later that evening. Mine was a mini beer stein.

So after dinner we headed back to the villa and shot glasses came into play. We attempted a Centurion which is one shot of beer, every minute, for 100 minutes. Basically it means that you drink three litres of beer in 100 minutes and it’s not pretty! Of 10 starters, we lost only 3 (spews in the garden), however the rules are that you can’t even leave the table, so technically only about 4 of us actually finished the full Centurion. Obviously the best thing to do after that is nude up and jump in the pool!! Why not?! Some of us were discrete and nuded up just as we got near the pool, others didn’t and we are all still paying for it (Paul mate, you shoulda been there with your own kind!).

I was ok on Friday morning as I stayed up and drank lots of water, but others were certainlyfeeling the pinch. I caught a lift with a few guys into Valencia to the airport where I got one the plane without too much trouble. That night I crashed out for about 10 hours. Here are some random pics of the house we were staying in, and the little (flee-ridden) kitten (there was an older mum cat too) who were also tenants.

Saturday night was also good though. The reason that I’d come back from Spain on the Friday (CK etc came back Saturday) was that I’d promised to go to a cocktail party. It was a brilliant night and I met a stack of new people (mostly Aussies). The really really scary thing was though that one of the guys there looks exactly like my brother Chris (go Fatman!!!). Honestly, I was spewing because the LCD on my camera got broken on that last night in Spain and I couldn’t get a photo. (We think someone knocked the camera off the table late at night because there’s photos that I took right up until I went to sleep.) I stuck to beer to be safe but still got pretty whacked. Another great night and because we were out till late, I had to crash at a friends house on the couch.

Sunday was basically a tube ride home in the morning followed by a lot of sitting around. I did manage to go for a run but it was just painful.

So yeah, I’m now still stuffed and in need of sleep. Hopefully I’ll be right again this weekend as it’s CK’s birthday on Thursday so we are going out. Happy birthday CK! And Happy Birthday to Sarah for yesterday and to Stoney for next Tuesday.

One more thing, Go the Dockers!!!!(I’ll be at the pub 5am Saturday to see them!!!)

Anka