Valencia... I'll never eat napolitana sauce again.

Valencia was a very significant city for me in a lot of ways. It was our first time sharing an apartment with the five of us. It was where we celebrated Gavin's birthday prematurely (Zac and I will be in London for the real deal). But most importantly it was the setting for the Tomatina, which we had been fantasizing about for a good 10 months, which we planned our entire trip around, and which marked the nostalgic halfway point in my trip.

But we'll get to that later.

It took us a while to find our apartment - what we thought was the building's name was in fact the name of the main street it was on. It was worth the trek. For a low price we enjoyed a swanky pad that even had a DVD player, which we made good use of.

Originally we planned to see Valencia on our first day, but we decided to move our secret birthday plans forward. It was originally meant to be a surprise, but it became impossible to coordinate behind his back, even though Gavin is pretty oblivious to those kind of things. We made a Gavin day, complete with Gatorade, Jatz and

avocado and homemade beef pies instead of cake, which I spent a solid 3 hours making. I can't work out how to make puff pastry do what I want. Its an untamable mistress. So the pies weren't too pretty, but they tasted awesome. We spent the day watching 5 hours of Planet Earth, the amazing documentary series I love so much that I decided to purchase on the go (If you haven't seen it, you have to. Right now).

We had a good night out on the town, checking out the pub scene, and happened to bump into a guy selling return bus tickets with his new company to the Tomatina, which we bought, but we'll get to that later.

And by later I mean now.

We awoke at 5am, sculled an energy drink and worked together to whip up a biiiig breakfast for the long day ahead. Running on four hours sleep we put on our home made uniforms (shirts we wrote on) and headed for the bus.

Quick history break. (Disclaimer: I can't vouch for the accuracy of any facts and figures. It's just stuff I heard). For those who don't know the Tomatina is a annual festival dating back to 1946 in a small neighbouring town Bunyol where a few ruffians threw tomatoes at a mascot in a passing parade. The population of 8000 swells to 45000 on the last Wednesday of August as international tourists, mainly Australians and Japonese, flock to join in the mammoth tomato fight using bad tomatoes from the harvest.

Back to the adventure. We got there nice and early to get nice and close for the first phase of the day: The Ham. For reasons unknown, the festival does not start until the crowd rips a ham off the top of a 10 metre pole covered in lard. However for the past 7/12 years (stories vary but it's always these numbers) nobody has got the ham, so the festival now begins at 11am. Anyway I came all that way and I wanted to give it a try. Its packed, and wild, and rough. People climb on top of each other. Standing on hands, backs and heads, anything to get to the ham. As soon as the difficulty o the challenge sunk in people realized that we had to work as a team. We kept trying, wiping lard off higher and higher points on the pole in order to make it easier to climb. After two hours however we were making little progress as a crowd, and as an individual I found that my attempts just pulled others down, so I began helping others to get up instead.

Then, suddenly, he came. Monkey Boy, or 'Victor Sanchez' as I later discovered was his real name. He has a gift. He climbed above us all, getting higher and higher, removing more and more lard. But he fell. And we thought it was over. We were wrong. Ten minutes later he tried again, and supported by the cheers of 45000 he did it. For the first time in 7/12 years, on the one year we went, they got the ham. Monkey Boy carried his victory ham, floating on a sea of people, all going insane.

That was phase one. Then came the tomatoes. We could barely move after the ham, it was that crowded. Then the trucks came. 6 trucks made their way through the narrow streets pressing everyone against the walls while people on the tricks threw tomatoes down upon us. We fought with the few tomatoes around, and As each truck passed we became emporer penguins, pressed up and huddled together and tucking our necks into our chesy to protect our eyes from the acidic, juicy barrage. It was great, but we found ourselves asking "is this it?". Then a truck stopped in front of us and with a groan began to tilt the tomato container. A sea of tomatoes flooded from the truck, literally a sea, knocking us from our feet. That's when the battle really began. No tactical warfare, just a series of smushing and hurling. People abandoned their goggles, useless, into the ankle deep sea of tomatoes, now squished into what looked like pasta sauce, as well as sweat, urine, vomit and even a smidgeon of faecal matter. Eventually we retreated to the hosing area where loud pumps doused the crowd. I came in wearing a full set of clothes. I left wearing nothing but short-shorts - even my shoes were gone. And so transpired the most surreal and fantastic experience ever, surpassing expectations in every respect, and the biggest challenge yet to my vow not to wash my hair on this trip. 20 or so gyms, a sulfur spring, my own vomit and a sea of tomatoes, and its still silky smooth ;)

But I digress. The point is that I'm never eating napolitana sauce again.