La Tomatina

Yes, I really am this white


I laid out all of my stuff last night for La Tomatina so that if I woke up late it would only take me a minute or so to be ready. Fortunately that wasn’t a problem I was too excited to sleep. I heard that everything you bring with you will most likely reek of tomatoes and be destroyed.

I bought a pair of shoes for 4.5 EUR, which had pictures of Che Guevara on them. I put some money and TP in a plastic bag and put that in a money pouch under my shorts. Then I put on two thin white undershirts, to hopefully prevent the sun from burning my oh so white skin. I was ready by 8am and couldn’t find anything else to do in my hotel room so I headed towards the bus at 8:15. There was an empty bus waiting with a driver in it and a sign that matched my ticket on the window. I sat in the shade to wait. Another bus pulled up around 8:30 that was mostly full and had the same sign in the window. I decided to hop on this bus because since it was mostly full it should leave sooner and get me to La Tomatina. The driver was from Bunol and knew all kinds of back roads, we made it there very quickly.

Once there I didn’t really know where I was supposed to go, so I just followed the crowds. There was a pole that had been greased with a piece of ham tied to the top. The goal is to climb the pole and then cut down the ham. I kept walking and there were many locals in their houses who were hosing off and pouring buckets of water on the people in the streets. As I got closer the crowds and streets got much more crowded. I made it to a street that was nearly impossible to walk on and then I got behind some guys who were pushing their way through the crowd. As I got close to the middle of the street I could see wet shirts tied in knots being thrown around. I realized that any guy who got close was having his shirt removed and then tossed. The guys were like vampires, once bitten they wanted everyone else to be a vampire also. I quickly went backwards to get away and to avoid having my shirt ripped to shreds.

I was in a crowd that was packed so tight I nearly had to push people away from me so that I could exhale. An announcement came over some speakers in Spanish, but it didn’t matter what was said or in what language because everyone started chanting and cheering so loudly it was impossible to hear. I pushed forward in the crowd back towards the flinging of shirts and got too close. My shirts were grabbed and I gave in and allowed them to be taken. They were quickly thrown someplace else. I knew I needed a shirt to get back on the bus, so I bent down into the street grabbed someone else's dirty shirt off the ground and stuffed it into my pocket for later. Tomatoes came from nowhere and started flying, just a few at first and I thought, is this going to be it? Then I saw a dump truck driving down the middle of the suffocatingly packed street. The back of the dump truck had people in it throwing tomatoes at the crowd. Then the dump truck stopped within feet of me and raised up the back pouring juice and tomatoes into the street. The madness had started. People rushed and pushed and threw tomatoes at everyone and everywhere. I grabbed a tomato and threw it through a gap in the people just as an Asian guy was popping up in the gap and it hit him square in the mouth, he took his tomato and returned fire hitting me squarely in the ear. The throwing continued as three more dump trucks made their way along the street, every time bringing with them more tomatoes. It was amazing and exhilarating and so much fun. After an hour the horn sounded and the throwing was officially over.

Tomatoes were everywhere, in my ears, in my eyes, in my underwear, in my shoes everywhere. Thousands of people were all covered in tomatoes and their juice. As I made my way out of the tomato streets and towards the after party I had feathers from a pillow dumped on me to mix with all of the tomato.

The locals stand on the streets and on their roofs with hoses and spray people down with water to try and assist the removal of tomatoes. I pulled my street shirt from my pocket and discovered that it was only a piece of a shoulder and a front, not really usable. It didn’t take long and I was able to find another shirt on the street and put that on. Now that the fighting was over it was time to get clean-ish, dry off and have a few beers.

CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO SEE ALL OF TODAY'S PICTURES

08_26_2009 La Tomatina small