Hóla once again! The time had come to move on and head to Valencia to prepare ourselves for the crazy festival in Buñol...'La Tomatina!'

It was another early morning wake up call for us, to pack all out things and head off to Valencia! Wooo!

There weren't many people about on the walk to the train station, just the odd few going home from a night out! We did see about 3 police cars and what I thought were paramedics...(turned out they were bin men). Something had happened, I'm assuming a fight or something. The police are everywhere here though so any situation is usually under control before anything serious happens. They need systems like that at home!

We got to the platform in plenty of time and before we knew it we were zooming off to Valencia at 200mph! On arrival we just grabbed a taxi to the hotel to drop our bags off.

We were very early for the tour so we took a wander down to the old town. Stopped for some breakfast on the way of course, a nice little break in between walking. The old town isn't that far from the hotel but walking as the temperature kept rising was difficult! It started at 26 degrees and that was at 9am. You can imagine how hot it got by the time midday came. We had a little wander through all the side streets. The city is actually a lot prettier than what I first saw of it in the taxi...a lot of high rise buildings, quite dirty to be honest, on first impressions it reminded me of Benidorm. I'm very glad it wasn't like that in the centre. The buildings were beautiful, it was just really nice to walk around! We passed some pretty awesome trees on the walk in(yes I'm talking about trees, but they're worth a mention haha)...they would be perfect for a huge tree house. They should consider building one there, that would be a great tourist attraction.

In town we had a little sit down in the square, looking for some markets that might be around. We were approached by two reps asking us if we were going to la Tomatina? And if we wanted to join a foam party tonight. Liz was a definate no for that...but I've never been to one so can't really judge it. She says they're awful though, and I can't really imagine having a face full of foam being that fun. At least we still look young enough for them to want us to join their party! :). They pointed us in the direction of central market and that's where we headed. There was so much meat and cheese there...I wish I could take most of it home...they had a huge Camembert which I really wanted, but don't think cheese would last the journey home really! Damn!

Whilst walking around looking at all the different food I noticed an old man was sort of walking closely behind us. When we stopped he stopped and looked. Liz initially thought he was looking for his wife until we realised that every time we stopped at a stall he did the same and waited until we started walking again. Was super creepy. We decided to try and trick him, stopping at a stall and then walking back in the same direction. We would then creep around the corner to check he'd gone. We had a little stalker on our hands. We managed to lose him in the end but we wanted to get out of there before he spotted us again.

Just as we left the market a lady started crossing the street (when the green man was flashing) pushing a man in a wheelchair. As they got half way across the road a car started to come, not slowing down at all just beeping at her, until she started running across! The Spanish do not stop for anybody apparently...not even at a pedestrian crossing! Mental!

It was 33degrees at this point and we had to head back to meet our tour group. So we walked back dragging our feet! We were struggling.

The tour reps were waiting, so we checked in and headed to our room for a well deserved siesta :).

The stomachs were rumbling at about 4pm so off we went to grab some lunch. Found a lovely little kebab shop on the corner. The food was so good...I made a bit of a mess though, the sauce went everywhere. It's usually Liz that has the sauce going everywhere but her wrap was nice and neat and she had no trouble eating it. A guy at the cafe came over to help us with speaking to the waitress, he also then came over when we finished to clean the table... But apparently he didn't work there, he just helped with cleaning up, then he came back with the bill...to me that sounds like he works there. Plus his name was Typhoon! Unusual. We do attract some weird people. It's like we have a sign on our heads saying 'if you're strange...come and chat to us'.

Back at the hotel and it was time to prepare for our night out. Whilst getting ready I see that my makeup was not only on my towel but had marked the bed as well. I have definately traded places with Lizzy ha. We keep bumping into each other accidentally and I genuinely think we've switched places!

So we went downstairs for our briefing...and they made things sound pretty exciting but I started to get slightly worried when the rep kept saying, 'girls...make sure you're wearing layers for the Tomatina!' over and over again. So it turns out that the 8% of locals that go to this thing like to rip girls shirts off...and apparently it's really easy to do when the tshirts are soaked through with tomato juice! I had only brought I Tshirt to ruin...and didn't really want to have to come home on the tour bus topless! Haha. They were handing out free tshirts each, which were cool souvenirs, so we didn't really want to wear them to the Tomatina or they'd just get ruined. I look down and Liz had taken two so I sneaked another one out and we had one to ruin and one to keep! :D Quick thinking Lizzy!

We had some free time before the trip to the club, so we headed to a small bar for some drinks! There's a perfect little bar around the corner and it was 1euro for 1/2 a litre of beer or Sangria! Perfect, especially as we were on a budget! Liz began one of her random conversations... 'Did you know era has ear in it? You know an anagram!' Haha...it just came out of nowhere then... 'Liz has an anagram of zil you know like in football when it's 5-zil!' I'd love to live in your head for a day Liz, I think it would be quite amusing. Ha.

We'd arranged to meet back at the lobby for 9, so we bought fresh drinks in Plastic glasses and took them to the hotel. Definately don't think we were supposed to just walk out with a drink though. Oops! Everyone was writing names on their arms before leaving, but nobody passed us a pen so we were Thing 1 and Thing 2 for the night. On the walk/bus journey to town we were busting for toilet, we asked the tour guide where the club was so that we could catch everyone up...her specific directions from where we were, were 'Left then left and it's called (las something). Back on the street, as the group is pretty big we were lucky and managed to find them still walking to the club...but the direction she was taking everyone was completely different to what she'd told us, not only that, the name of the club was something very different to what she'd said. I think she might have been trying to lose us. Although I'm not sure why! Are we that uncool? Ha.

We had a couple of sangrias before dancing, especially as one of them was free. While we were sat in the corner drinking, the rep came up and said 'come and dance...I remember, nobody puts baby in the corner.' A slightly random dirty dancing quote. Not quite sure why she said it! Ha.

We eventually got up and had a little dance but it felt like we were Romy and Michelle...everyone was trying to get with each other or completely wasted(although I'm pretty sure they were faking it) we were just like the loners with no friends...awwww sad I know haha. We left shortly after and strolled back to the hotel to get a night sleep before a day at the beach.

Early rise to get some breakfast, also to wrap up some sandwiches to take for lunch. Might as well grab all the free food we can...it is saving money after all! Haha. We missed the walking tour and went back to sleep for a couple of hours before getting ready to head to the beach.

The walk to the beach was 2km but we looked down the road that we needed to walk and just thought b***** this let's get a tram. We hopped on praying we wouldn't bump into people checking tickets as we had no time to purchase one...we were living on the edge ha.

Got to the beach and found a nice little spot to relax in the sunshine. We were not prepared for the heat! Jesus Christ it was hot...it must have been at least 40 degrees with not a cloud in the sky, not even a cool breeze it was just heat everywhere! We slapped on the factor 50 and just relaxed. A couple of hours is all we lasted it got ridiculous. We started walking back to where the trams were but stupidly started walking over the dry sand...which was bloody boiling. I started running and my sandals fell off and the sand was unbearable to stand on I thought I could run to the end. How wrong I was, I lasted about 3 seconds and ran back to some shade to put the shoes back on! It's safe to say that the bottoms of my feet were now scolded. Ouch! We then realised that everyone was walking over the wet sand until they got to the walkway back up to the concrete. That probably made sense, why the hell we didn't think of that I don't know.

At this point I was starting to struggle. I had definately burnt, I was extremely dehydrated and I'm pretty sure my body was overheating! We needed shade and air con and water!! We found the closest bar and stayed there to cool off. Pretty difficult getting a drink in there, the guy didn't acknowledge us at all at first, then I asked if we were ok to have only drinks and he didn't even try to understand he just walked off. We sat for a little while waiting for service which was taking forever...all we wanted was a bloody drink. Eventually we managed to communicate and got what we wanted.

We were dreading walking outside again...the heat was seriously unbearable. I understand why people have siestas over here. There's no need for anyone to be out in that heat.

We got the tram back and went straight to our air conditioned room. I jumped in a cold shower and when I got out I saw the damage that had been done...burnt patches everywhere! Not a good look at all! It seems I can't apply suncream properly! The patches were ridiculous. No idea what I did but it wasn't applied properly.

A bit later on we went to catch the bus into the centre for some food and so get a few bits ready for la Tomatina. Honestly it was about 6pm and still around 30 degrees plus. The breeze was still hot, the feeling is like someone constantly blowing a hot hair dryer in your face.

We managed to get everything we needed in I-hop...Spain's version of primani, love it in there! Then we grabbed some food. We saw some signs which said 2euro and 3euro dishes, great for us. But the guy spoke no English and when I asked what things were for that price he didn't know what I was saying. I ordered the nuggets and chips which were on the pictures next to the prices and it came to 8euro!!!...I couldn't even eat the chicken. Well to be honest I'm not sure if it was even chicken because it tasted disgusting!

After doing a bit more window shopping and sightseeing we got back on the bus back to the hotel. We decided not to venture out in the evening, it was bed time for us so we would feel fresh and ready for the early start...6.30am.

The day had finally arrived, it was TOMATINA time! Woooo! We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for...20,000 people in a town with a population of 9,000. Mental!

After an early breakfast we hopped on board the coach in our Tomatina tshirts and made our way to the little town of Buñol. We were given the rules of the festival again on the bus...most importantly...squish and throw, squish and throw! It was drilled in! We were ready for it!

There was a little walk from the bus to the Main Street, but you knew we were in the right place when we got there, aside from the thousands of people standing around there were huge plastic covers hiding the walls and windows of the locals houses. They were very prepared.

It was only 9am and we had two hours before the tomato war began...we were wondering what happens in that time! Well, nobody told us there would be a huge street water fight prior to the tomato trucks turning up. A bit of an unfair water fight may I add. The locals were just throwing buckets and squirting hoses at everyone from the roof, we were weaponless and couldn't fight back. It did cool is down though.

So there is a tradition at the festival where there is a pole, plastered in lard with a huge joint of ham at the top of it. The pole is probably a bit bigger than a lampost. Now the aim is to try climbing to the top and bring down the ham! This just seemed to be an impossible task. So many people tried... and failed. Liz said it was just like takeshis castle... And she was right, everyone just running around, going crazy all fighting to get the ham. There were people climbing on top of each other pulling legs...so surreal. We did try getting quite close to the pole but it was just crazy. 20,000 people in one street...we were just getting crushed.

On the walk down towards the pole though, Liz was targeted by two local men which at first asked for a picture, (which I went to take) not realising that it was a set up and the next thing you know a huge bucket of water was thrown directly in her face. The locals were brutal and well up for being rowdy!

The area near the pole was just awful, you physically couldn't move! So we walked back up to the middle of the street, where there was breathing space. We stopped at the area where the most water was being squirted and thrown though. So lots of buckets of water thrown over me...I'm pretty sure that means I completed the ice bucket challenge...right? Haha it was freezing after all!

One kid...I swear she was the girl from 'the orphan!' Demon child! She didn't even look happy squirting the water she just looked evil!!!

Time actually flew by, with the water war going on, and before we knew it the trucks were approaching, loaded with thousands of tomatoes. As soon as you see them your instant thought is, how the hell is that going to fit down this little street?...Well it does, and the staff just push you right up against the wall, so you're out of the way bit at the same time, just getting crushed. There's a tense moment when you see the first truck approach. Everyone eagerly awaits the first tomato. Then the Claxon sounded and the tomatoes came, in their thousands!! And oh my god, all hell broke loose. It is literally the worlds biggest food fight. Everyone just goes nuts. The smell and taste when the first batch of tomatoes are thrown is just disgusting. Liz was heaving for a little while. I learnt that you can't scream during the fight or you'll just get a mouthful of nastiness.

5 minutes in to starting this insane festival...'Bang' a full un-squished, I'll repeat that...UN-SQUISHED tomato right in the eye! The first rule we were told was squish and throw and the bloody staff on the trucks weren't even doing it. That's when I realised I was probably going to leave the festival very bruised. OUCH!

The trucks come around a couple of times, each time the throwing gets worse as they stop squishing even more of them so your just getting hit by a hard tomato at quite a high speed! It is very painful, but it's a great anger relief as you get to throw them back! The evilness just came out haha. It felt so good to just hit people with food. Liz got a good few people right in the heads as well!

The hour flew by and the second Claxon sounded which stops the food fight. By the end of the hour we were all shin deep in tomato goo. It' was literally just a river of sludge by the end with people swimming, dancing, even doing the worm in it! On the slimy, slippery walk back out I thought it would be a great opportunity to take a picture with the street in the background. Some guy was nice enough to offer to take it...as we were just about to have the picture a local guy jumped in the picture with us. He stood next to Liz, I looked across to find that he was pointing down... And when I then looked down I was shocked to see the guy had a huge boner!!! What?!?!? I couldn't believe it. Me and Liz were just smiling in the picture and this guy had just jumped in pointing at his boner!!! I am so intrigued to see this picture...if it comes out properly it will be the best photobomb ever!! Haha.

The locals are out straight after the second Claxon, beginning the instant cleaning process of the street filled with red! As you're walking out you'll just get hosed down by the locals, they're cleaning you, as well as the street.

All in all it was an amazing day, and the best thing was we all seemed to have kept the tops on and boobs in place! Result! We got back to the bus and changed, half my clothes were binned down in the town. Once we had changed the rest of our clothes...including underwear, we took the tomato stained laundry to the bin, only to find that there were people at the skip taking the clothes back out to keep. Not sure what they'd want to do with our underwear really but it's none of my business haha.

On the trip home we were told that it was quite a tame Tomatina this year. If that was tame I would not like to see a mental one! Jesus Christ! Haha.

Both of us were starving when we got back so jumped and had a not so quick shower...getting the tomato seeds out of your hair is a nightmare. I have a feeling I'll be picking out seeds for the next couple of days! Yuck. We then headed back to kebab place we went the night before last(because it was just delicious!). Typhoon (the guy that supposedly didn't work there) was back there...how can he spend so much time in the restaurant and not be working there? Well I suppose I can say the same thing about me and live lounge though, that's like my go to place!

The food went down a treat again all that was needed was a lovely white kit kat to finish us off. We were saying before going for food that there was no news agents around our hotel yet we took a walk down a different street back to the hotel and found one...score!!! As soon as I asked for a white kit kat the guy at the door randomly said 'she's being racist!' We hadn't even had a conversation just exchanged a hello at the door and he was making racist jokes! What?!? Haha. He then said you won't get much choice of chocolate in here like you do in the uk...he was right! There was no choice at all...actually the only chocolate they had was kit kat. Luckily that was what we wanted!

Once the tummies were full it was back to our room for another siesta. I'm not sure what I'm going to do back home without my afternoon nap now!! Ha.

Woke up with my eyes glued together...the gunk coming from my eyes is just gross! The acid of the tomatoes actually hurt in la Tomatina and I think the after effects of this is fungus in the eyes!! Haha.

Well we've come to the end of another great adventure...an early night now ready for the journey home. Another festival crossed off the bucket list for me but many, many more to go...and I can't wait.

Almost time for a weekend in London with Benjamin and a night at secret cinemas 'back to the future' screening. Something else to look forward to just before going back to reality next week.

Well the time has come to love you and leave you.(sad I know) Until next time amigos. ¡Adios!

J.L

Xxx