I woke up this morning and freaked out, as my alarm hasn't gone off! (Damn am/pm!!) Half asleep, Darren was able to reassure me it was only 6.26 and we hadn't missed our bus, and we chucked on some clothes and stumbled down to reception by 6.35! The breakfast room was packed with our tour group, and we quickly found a red shirt guide and got our wristbands just in time! I was even able to sneak some quick pastries from the breakfast table before we went outside and got on one of the four or five busses that were there taking our group to Buñol for the La Tomatina - basically a massive food fight! We made the 40ish minute trip there and our bus' guide, Boo, gave us some safety tips and advice for the fight on the way. We pulled up in Buñol and got off the bus. Darren and I walked with Boo chatting with her on the way through town. There were heaps of people on the streets making their way down to the Main Street for the fight, and there were heaps of people on the side selling things like goggles, sunnies, disposable cameras and that kind of thing. We bought a pair of goggles each, and I wanted to grab a camera but didn't have enough cash so thought I'd grab one a bit later on. We got through all the security stops and found an ATM and grabbed some cash then headed through the streets! It was crazy how many people were there! Apparently there would be 20,000 by the time it started! We walked down the length of the street and past the ham pole. It's literally a pole with a ham stuck on the top, then greased up with fat. Traditionally the fight isn't meant to start until someone is able to get to the top of the pole and reach the ham! So random! We made it up the hill a bit, past all the houses that you couldn't see for the huge tarps they had up covering them for protection! Darren waited in a line for the toilets, and I went to see if I could find a camera. I found a whole festival type area with rides and beers and everything but all the stall guys must have been on the other end of the town where we entered, so none of them were around! Dammit, no camera for us! We found a spot where we were able to sit without too many people crowding us, and found some people with our tour shirts on who had a camera so we could get a before shot of us, then hopefully an after shot too! And because we were with the same tour, we'd hopefully be able to get the photos from them! We sat down with them for a while and had a chat. We had a bit of a chuckle at some of the more ridiculous outfits and people there. Like the bloke in the white bikini who kept exposing himself for photos, the Asian guy with the massive expensive super camera in a bag, and the lady who was covered head to toe (burka and all) to avoid tomatoes, but had her iPad with her to take photos with. There were plenty more crazy costumes around the place too, but those were a few of my favorites, or as we called them, "instant targets". We also had a good laugh at everyone coming from the direction of the ham, who had got a bucket of water poured over them, or been hosed down by the locals! After chilling there for a while we decide we'd go find a beer, and went over to where they were selling them earlier and asked for one, but they were all out, so the crowd around that house (including me!) got a bucket of iced water all over us! Brrrrr!! So we headed out to the festival type area to find a beer, but after lining up for ages behind a group of Aussies who bought about 5 beers each, the beers were sold out! Noooo! So we ended up getting a mojito instead! We made our way back into the mayhem (it was getting quite crowded and excited in there!) and it started to rain. The middle of summer, in what's known to be quite a warm country, and it rains on us! Thunder and lightning too! And the rain was some of the thickest rain I've ever experienced! The locals were loving it though, waving to everyone from their windows! One group of young guys had a toy sniper gun pretending to pick people off, which was pretty funny. After about 10 minutes of this rain, everyone was soaked through and cold, but the vibe was still buzzing, it was great! Then the big moment finally came as the first truck could be seen coming down the street, then came the tomatoes! It was crazy. They were huge trucks absolutely full of tomatoes, with around 10-15 or so people in the tray of the trucks throwing tomatoes out into the crowd. It was so much fun! But it was hard to get tomatoes for the first bit, but as they threw more and more out, you could grab handfuls of tomatoes from the ground to throw around. Getting a whole tomato was the best thing ever! The very first tomato that hit me though, was a perfect shot, right between the eyes! the goggles were very ineffective and very quickly got thrown away! About five trucks made their way through the tiny narrow street and so many tomatoes were in the air, it was raining red, it was great! One guy at the front of one of the trucks was pelting tomatoes down with everything he had, it was like he was out to kill! One of them got me in the shoulder and it hurt so much! I spent most the time while that trick was passing hiding behind a really tall guy! Little bit of a buzz kill when everyone's there for a good time! But the crowd were all aiming for this guy by the time the truck went by so it worked out fine in the end! After about an hour the fight was coming to an end. There were no whole tomatoes to be found anywhere, and people were grabbing handfuls of mush from the ground to throw around. By this time we were pretty much standing in pasta sauce, it was awesome. Darren invented the tomato grenade, which was an empty beer cup filled with tomato pulp and launched into the air. A few of the braver locals started to emerge from their houses, one went so far as to wear a white shirt and tried (and failed) to hide behind his umbrella! A few people had found that the tomato pulp made for a pretty awesome slip n slide and were actually sliding on their stomachs down the street! Some locals had appeared on their balconies and were joining in the fun by chucking down the tomatoes that had gotten stuck up there that no one could get to, and there were people throwing buckets of water down on top of people, and people with hoses washing people off from the rooftops. We slowly started making our way down the street to where the craziest part of the fight had been. This section wasn't like pasta, but more like tomato soup! People down here were still being a bit crazy, so we thought we might avoid that section and turned down an alleyway to make our way back on the backstreets. We got out to the other main street which had a real party feel going on. We bought a couple of beers from a bunch of people with a stall who were dancing around and having a great time, then followed the mob of red soaked people up the street. We got our bearings and still had a bit of time before the bus so we headed back down the street and Darren lined up for a kebab while I ducked in and got some food from the bakery. We met a couple of Japanese girls and got some €1 beers from a local who probably had just bought a slab and was selling them on the street, then we made a song about our €1 beers and sang it as we walked down the street. We got ourselves hosed off by some locals (although we still seemed absolutely covered in tomato!) and eventually made our way back to the bus. We grabbed our clean clothes from under the bus and had a chat with a couple of Aussies, Steve and Caz, who we met as we were getting changed behind the bus. When it was time we got on the bus and started the trip back into Valencia. Almost instantly half the bus was asleep, but we were buzzing and were having a bit of a singalong to the radio with the people we had sat with at the start of the fight, who were sitting a few rows ahead of us. We had a young probably 18 year old Aussie girl sitting behind us who got a bit annoyed at Darren for having fun... "Everyone's trying to sleep" "doesn't he know no ones singing along?" and decided it was Darren's fault she couldn't sleep on the bus because she had partied last night and didn't get much sleep... Ummm.... Ok? Anyway, Darren ended up moving seats to chat and keep singing with the crew in the seats ahead. We made it back to the hotel, and arranged to meet up with the crew we had been hanging out with and get some dinner together, then went up to our room. I had a shower, and the water was running orange for so long, it was ridiculous! When I was finally clean, and had washed my hair (twice!), I got out and got in a quick snooze while Darren had his shower. When we were ready we went downstairs again and met up with our crew - there ended up being 11 of us! - and got a couple of taxis into the city. We walked around for a bit to find somewhere to eat, and ended up wandering around for quite a while. One of the girls, Elena, was originally from Spain, so we didn't have a problem with the language barriers around the place at least! (Most of the others were from London) We walked past an ice cream shop which had some strange flavours, and our stomachs churned at the thought of the tomato ice cream! We eventually decided on a place and went in for dinner. We had a good chat with the people on our end of the table, and laughed when at the end of our meal, almost everyone had a tomato left on their plate that they couldn't think about eating! After resisting (well, almost!) throwing them at each other, we put them all on one plate, and it could have been a whole meal there were so many tomatoes! When we had finished our food, we paid and headed off for a bit of a fast walk to plaza tetuan where the shuttle bus for the Tomatina after party was going from. It was free entry before 8pm, but our guide had told us it was ok as long as we were on the bus before 8. And it was nearly 8! We got on the bus (8.10!) and made our way to the party. They still let us in for free, so all was good, and we went in and went to get our free drink. It was also supposed to be only before 8, but I told the bar girl we'd been told it was ok, and she believed me and let us have it free! Yay! So we had our drink and chatted with the crew for a bit, then went to say hi to our Aussie friends, Steve and Caz. It was a very nightclubish feel and after we were there only about an hour and a half and had a chat and a dance with both groups we decided we might call it a night. It really wasn't our scene at all! So we said goodbye and got on the shuttle bus back to town then shared a taxi back to the hotel with a couple from Canada, Ryan and Jane. We got chatting to them and when we got to the hotel we decided to go across the road for a beer with them before bed. We got our drink and had a chat with them, mostly travel related. They were super nice people. Afterwards, we headed back across the road, said goodbye and headed up to bed. We got a phone call from Pooja, one of the girls from the big group, to try organize to catch up the next day, then we went to sleep.