La Tomatina is a festival I had dreamed of going to for years. I remember when I was in my cubicle at my old job reading about it and telling myself “one day I am going to be there.” I didn’t think much of it because we say that often, but never really make it happen. Well as I started planning my RTW trip I knew I had to include a few things; my brothers wedding in Playa del Carmen, my best friends wedding at home, gay pride in Amsterdam and La Tomatina in Spain. They were things I could not miss while I was traveling the world and well now I can say I managed to do all 4 of them.
A shot of Ali, Val & I before La Tomatina then a few minutes we got separated. Ahh we were so clean…lol!
This one was a bit different thanks to Twitter a few Travel Bloggers actually got together to plan a meet up in Valencia to make sure we did La Tomatina together. This planning started months ago. In the end only 4 of us were certain we would make it and decided to rent an apartment for a week in Valencia. It was Val,Ali, Andi & I that made it (you can click on link to go to blogs) to La Tomatina.
I assume everyone should know what La Tomatina is, but incase you don’t here is a brief description. La Tomatina is the largest tomato fight in the world that occurs once a year in Bunol, Spain on the last Wednesday of August. The origin of the festival is not quite sure they believe it started around 1944-46 by a few locals for unknown reasons and every year it got bigger. Now instead of giving you a detailed play by play of what happened by writing it all I am going to list my thoughts from beginning to end on that day. Some will have times next to them, as I know what time they occurred and other won’t, but know they happened in that order.
—————–
4:45am “Ahh my alarm it’s to early and I got no sleep since I stayed up till 1:30am trying to watch Kelly Clarkson’s live stream premiere of her new single. Just a few more minutes.”
4:50am “Okay I am up… EEEEeeeee time to get dressed cab will be here at 5:30am”
5:30am “Yay we are all out the door cab is there waiting for us. Off to the train station we go”
5:50am “Oh shit a long line already at the train station.”
6:10am “Wow the line behind us is long as hell, so glad we got here when we did.”
6:45am “Yay we got seats on the 1st train and we are heading to Bunol.”
7:30am “Holy shit so many people are here already wow this is going to be crazy. Now it’s time to find where the fight is going to happen.”
Greased Ham Pole and the crazy crowd.
8:40am “Looks like we got a good spot we are right in the middle and in front of the greased ham pool”
9:05am “Fuck it is getting crazy packed.”
9:25am “EEEEEeeeee PEOPLE are CLIMBING THE POLE. Oh man this is awesome. People are crazy.”
9:40am “What the fuck… people are throwing beer and water bottles along with flip flops at the people climbing the pole. Ahh people are stupid.”
9:45am “Okay this is getting out of control it is too packed.”
“Oh look someone threw a broom at the people climbing the poles”
“Oh and now someone threw a dustpan at them”
“Oh and now someone threw a yoga mat at them… where the fuck do they get these things from?”
“OMG SOME HUMANS ARE FUCKING STUPID… WTH IS PEOPLES PROBLEMS.”
10:10am “It’s starting to smell and this is very uncomfortable. This is just not cool… I’m not having a good time.”
10:20am “FUCK YES THE GUY WE WANTED TO GET THE HAM DOWN GOT IT!!!”
10:21am “Oh fuck they are body surfing him around the crowd. I am getting smushed.”
10:22am I tell Val & Ali “I just want to come out of this alive. This is fucking horrible.”
10:30am “Yay they are throwing water at us from above… that will help cool us down. Ahhh it feel so good.”
10:55am “Okay 5 more minutes I’m ready to get this over with and done… I am miserable right now. Why am I even doing this?”
11:00am BANG “Yay the shot was fired the fight has begun.”
11:15am “Um I have not seen a single tomato. This is the stupidest thing ever what the fuck?” (Ali leaves me and Val she needs more space).
11:20am “Oh shit the trucks are coming right down the middle of the road.”
11:22am “Yay they are throwing tomatoes at me. Woohoo I got one… I want more I want more.”
11:25am “OMG VAL where did you goooo… I can’t see you… Ugh I lost Val… damn it.”
- This was taken maybe 10 minutes after the fight had ended. Here you can get an idea of how red the street was turned into because of all the tomatoes. During the fight though it was at least a foot deep of tomatoes.
“HOLY SHIT THEY JUST DUMPED A SHIT LOAD OF TOMATOES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET”
“OMG I AM KNEE DEEP IN TOMATOE JUICE THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME”
“FUCK I KEEP GETTING HIT… NOW IM ANGRY…” I got wild and throw tomatoes at everyone.
Me in the middle of the La Tomatina fight while it is going on. My favorite picture of the entire 300 pictures I took.
“OMG THIS IS SO FUCKING AWESOME…”
“Okay time for a break let me get to the side… I’m tired of thinking I am about to die in here.”
“More trucks are coming… fuck they keep hitting me in the face… thank God I have my goggles.”
“Okay time to get back in the fight.” I go crazy again.
“OMG THIS IS JUST SO FUCKING AWESOME… EEEeeeeee.”
“Wow this is so disgusting…but oh well I’m loving it”
12pm BANG “Aww the fight is over.”
Yeah this is what my hair looked like after the fight… lol fucking awesome!
12:05pm “Why are people still throwing tomatoes? I’m ready to get out of here”
12:10pm “I’m gonna slow down… I see cute men everywhere. Yum….”
12:30ish “Yay I found Val again.”
12:35pm “Thank you god for letting me and my camera survive this… I loved it.”
Me at the end of La Tomatina! Oh man I fucking loved it.
——————
Now I will just write what happened after the fight. Shortly after I found Val we also found Andy but Ali was no where to be found. Val & I were so damn excited that we did this and enjoyed it a lot. We were also away from the crowd and can have our lil photo shot with my camera outside of the 2 ziplock bags. Took a few photos and then went on the search for Ali. We found Ali she didn’t enjoy it as much (neither did Andy). We then were on a mission to rinse off, find food, and other things we needed before heading home.
I my self was about to pass out too, but I managed to get this shot of everyone just exhausted on the train on the way home.
On the way home you could see everyone was just exhausted and past out on the train. We finally made it back home and all showered rinsed off & for the next few days still found pieces of tomatoes around the house and our bodies…lol!!! All in all I must say La Tomatina was one of the most horrible uncomfortable moments of my life along with one of the best most amazing moments in my life. You have to know that something you have wanted to do your whole life may not be 100% amazing, but you have to role with the punches and enjoy it anyway. Now that it has been over a week since I did it I must say it was just down right amazing and glad I did it. Now I know I do wanna do it again and will be better prepared. I will also help y’all be prepared if any of you ever do it. My next post will be “My Tips for La Tomatina”. Now the comes the scary part… for my 1.5-2 year RTW trip… I only had these 4 things planned and now I have done them. This means I have no more set dates for the remainder of my RTW trip. That is pretty awesome, but yet scary at the same time. So have any of you ever done La Tomatina what were your thoughts on it? Do any of you wanna do it? Would you do it? Let me know bellow.
Credit – This awesome article is by Jaime Davila and can be read with pictures HERE.
travelingcuriously 