We made our way into Buñol at 7 am for the same reason as 19,998 other people - LaTomatina!!!
It was insane!! I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did, not because of how messy it gets, but because of all the bad stories I had heard about last years festival. Thankfully, we had no bad experiences and instead, had a badass day.
Buñol is about 45 minutes outside of Valencia so by the time we made it in, and the coach parked, it was about 8am. We rolled into town and there was a lot of, where the hell are we and why did they bring us here. It is a very small town with not much to see or do. There was a cat playing in a field. That was nice.
We walked about 15 minutes to reach the Main Street where the action takes place and had 3 hours to kill. Busabout located us near the main square which is situated near the ham pole. Basically there's a big pole in the middle of the square and a leg of ham is attached to the top of it. The pole is greased up with about an inch of lard and if someone can climb it, I guess they keep the ham? I walked up and was like oh yeah a white pole. The pole is actually brown, there was that much lard on it. A couple of people got close to the ham but no one succeeded this year, so 20,000 people came, and left ham-less.
The locals really get into it which adds to the fun. They tarp up their houses because it gets so messy, but they start throwing water on the crowd. One little old woman kept wetting us with her watering can. She quickly became my hero and I was shattered when her son came and ushered her away so he completely tarp up the house.
We then relocated in the crowd because it was getting a little too crowded for my liking and I started to hyperventilate like a boss. It was actually a known fact, that at that exact moment, 0 clubs could handle me. 0. We found a nice open space near a gang of locals with their hoses and buckets that were drenching everyone who passed with water. Needless to say, that was the last time we were dry for a while. It then began to rain and it was freezing cold! I could barely cope. The locals came to the rescue again and a few of them stood on their balconies and played trumpets and it turned into a massive street party. Everyone was dancing in the rain to keep warm. It was amazing.
When the first cannon was fired to symbolize the start of the fight, everyone went nuts. The street that is held on is tiny. It's lucky to be 3 metres with about 1 metre on either side for the footpath, and when you look down the street and see a big ass semi trailer full of tomatoes, with people in the back pelting tomatoes at people, there's something a little unsettling about that.
We were all crammed onto the foot path as it squeezed through and the first tomato I copped was smack bang in the forehead just above my left eye. My new goal in life is to move to Buñol so I can be a tomato thrower. You can't look up when the trucks come past because you just get pelted with tomatoes and they freaking hurt!! I managed to throw one back at one of the tomato throwers and partied when I smacked him in the side of the head. I was then showered in tomatoes.
Four semi trailers of tomatoes later, and we were past our ankles in slushy tomato water at the worlds biggest food fight.
Brendan got christened by some Spanish guy. Literally. He got a handful of tomato, poured it over his head, did the Jesus cross over his chest, they hugged it out and he said something in Spanish and he disappeared into the crowd never to be seen again. Until we saw him later on christening someone else. Christen slut.
My pants were already too big and they were so heavy that the kept falling down which made jumping up and down in the tomato slush very difficult, but you have to make do with these things. It also made it a little hard to booty clap and twerk, but you do what you gotta do.
I remember standing in the crowd just thinking this is just so strange. You would never ever get anything like that in Australia, yet in this small town in Spain these locals cop it every year and just deal. Australia needs to take some pointers from Buñol. It was complete madness but it was amazing madness, and every person there had such high spirits which made the event even better.
Once the fight was over we went to shower off, and I was standing in the line feeling like a person sized sun dried tomato, and it was probably because that's what I was. I had so much tomato in my hair, inside my pants, my shirt, absolutely everywhere. It made cleaning up really hard. The locals were out with their hoses again, and we saw a cute little old woman sweeping down her driveway and I wanted to pick her up and take her home so bad, but I'm pretty sure that's called kidnapping or something so she stayed put.
We got back on the bus, eventually, after the bus driver rejected me for having too many tomatoes in my hair, but I wrapped a towel around that bad boy and access was granted. Thankyou señor bus man. We napped the whole way back, because throwing tomatoes takes it out of you.
I loved LaTomatina so much!! It was so badass and I would do it again in a heart beat. Definitely a massive highlight of the trip.