I’m not even sure what word I would use to sum up La Tomatina. Messy? Gross? Aggressive? For me the experience falls into the category of “once is definitely enough”. I’m glad I did it, but won’t be rushing to do it again anytime soon.
We decided the best way to get to Bunol would be to catch one of the shuttle busses organized to take the masses. We left just after 7am. Arriving in Bunol, they unloaded everyone into a parking lot, brought out giant rubber garbage cans, filled them with sangria, and passed out plastic glasses. Let the party begin! We walked into town, just following the crowds. Vendors lined the streets, selling goggles, food and giant glasses of beer and sangria. Definitely not enough port-a-potty’s for all the people considering how much drinking was going on.
We made our way to the main square and arrived around 9am. The fight was set to start at 11am, after someone climbed a greased pole to retrieve a ham tied to the top. So for 2 hours we stood in the crowd, slowly getting pushed and shoved closer to the action. We probably moved a good 50ft without even trying. It was like being in a giant mosh pit. Filled with very aggressive people. We were rather unlucky and ended up right beside this circle of Spanish guys, who started pushing each other into the center of their circle, and then ripping the shirt of the guy in the middle. Guys are so weird. After they finished ripping off each other’s clothes, they started pulling in random people who were just trying to squeeze by. Both guys and girls. They attacked one girl so bad that here swimsuit bottoms were torn. It was one of the most disgusting and barbaric things I’ve ever witnessed. We didn’t really have any way of getting away from them either. While trying to stop them from pulling some other girl into the center, I had my own shirt ripped in the back. Luckily for us, there was a giant Aussie guy standing next to us who was able to shield up from them a bit. One of the Spanish guys in particular looked absolutely nuts, with these crazy eyes. I wish we had a picture of him, although had we tried to take one we probably would have gotten our asses kicked. The crazy guy started freaking out at the Aussie guy, whipping him with a wet t-shirt. And this was all before the tomatoes were even rolled out.
At 11am they rang a bell, signalling the start of the fight. Slowly giant dump trucks drove through the narrow streets, with guys walking in front, pushing the crowds against the buildings so no one would be run over. People sat perched on the trucks, throwing tomatoes at people. They never actually stopped and unloaded the tomatoes, trucks just kept driving through. I think they did unload some right at the very front, because I did see some people afterwards absolutely coated. The only tomatoes I threw were the ones that hit me. I didn’t want to even try and pick up tomatoes from the ground, because we were standing in a dirty, soupy pool of red water filled with garbage, shoes and bits of clothing floating around. For me the whole thing seemed to be more of a water fight than a tomato fight, because we ended up near these people with giant hoses, who just kept hosing down the crowd.
At 12pm another bell went off, signalling the end of the fight. Slowly everyone made their way off the main street, heading down the narrow residential streets. We stopped to get hosed down by a local standing in his doorstep with a hose.
We grabbed some food and then sat on the sidewalk and waited for a LONG 3.5hrs for the bus to come back and pick us up.
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