Over The Edge: September 2011

Sunday 25 September 2011

Mountain Gorillas

Uganda Gorillas

Location: Bwindi Impenetrable national Park

Our epic adventure to the Nshongi family of mountain gorillas in Bwindi Park started at the completely reasonable time of 4:30 Am when we crawled out of our tent to stumble around brushing our teeth and packing lunch. After ensuring our shirts where on right side out and our shoe laces were tied we hop into a 9 person van and start the 2.5 hour drive to the park office where we would check our permits and meet our guide. Now one might think that during this time you could catch up on sleep and relax before your hike. You would be wrong. Going at a speed that seemed way to fast we switched back and forth over what can be called roads (if you use a very broad definition of road). The van at times seeming to be scant inches from the edge of the drop off on one side. It was bumpy and full of gaps that I was sure would swallow the vehicle. Needless to say I didn’t get too much rest. After arriving at the park office and checking the permits we met our guide Rita and our guard Adam. Rita was a very friendly tiny girl who smiled a lot and was probably no older than I am, Adam was a quiet man with a large gun and a strawberry short cake bag (the cartoon from the 80’s not the actual cake). During our initial conversation with Rita she recommended we get porters to help us up the hill. When we were hesitant she insisted that she knew where we were going and our party of 8 would need at least 2. After informing us that the group yesterday didn’t get back from trekking till 9pm and at a price of 38000 Ugandan shilling each it seemed like we should take her advice. So we set off in our van again with visions of an 8 hour hike dancing in our heads we headed off to the start of the mountain we would climb. On the way over just to make things more interesting our van very very nearly went over the edge. This time we for sure missed by about 1cm as we fishtailed in the mud and came face first with the edge of the cliff. About 15 minutes after that shot of adrenalin we arrived at the starting point.

At a first glance it looked nothing like you would expect a hike to look like. To start with we were on top of a hill and there were houses and farms all around us… interesting. As it turns out we had to climb down the terraced farm field paths first before we could start climbing back up. Before setting off we got handed some walking sticks and shuffled into a walking order, Rita telling us the Big Tracy (me) should be in front to set the pace… So still feeling great about that complement and after about 1 hour of stumbling down slippery mud paths with louse rocks I was having a hard time. At some point my brain decided it was going to panic and I found myself unable to breathe well or calm down no matter what I tried. Needless to say it was going to be a long day. On the way down the hill we passed farmers, cows and a hut where they told us pigmies lived. Once we reached the bottom of the first hill it was time to cross the first… bridge? Log? Half a dozen half submerged rotted logs that liked to move and roll in a marsh… yeah that’s the one. This was the first time the porters really came in handy leading a strong hand and really remarkable balance to us as we tried not to fall into the mud around us. After crossing a small flat part we went over another bridge? But this time it was almost bridge like… they had taken some logs and nailed a railing to one side…. Not well and not very solidly but they put in the effort… and it was almost half a meter out of the water. So… good hustle.

At this point the real fun started. After putting on long shirts finding gloves and tucking our pants really stylishly into our socks we entered the forest. The first thing I noticed was the ridiculous abundance of butterflies, this may seem insignificant but not only were they pretty but at points trying to see one almost caused me to fall off the mountain. We began our trek up what can reasonably be called a path. It was just shy of vertical. If I had to guess it was about an 80 degree slope I have been up latters that had a gentler angle. For the most part it was about an hour of this slight path with roots and vines crossing it. Trees to jump over and slippery mud with large rocks to jump up or down. The sort of path followed right along the edge of the hill and you at many points had just slightly more than enough room to place both feet side by side between the hill to one side and the drop off to the other side. It was about this time I started to use the friendly helping hand of our porter Francis. Basically this man is the reason I got up the hill. Just having somebody’s hand to hold helped me to calm down a little bit. He kept telling me I would make it and not to worry, it is very nice to have a personal cheering squad. Not to mention the very real physical help he gave me with balance and guiding me to put my feet on stable ground and helping pull me up the really steep bits.

At 2 hours into this adventure I was fairly sure this was the most physically demanding thing I had ever done. I was wrong. The next 2 hours would be the most physically demanding thing I have ever done. After passing our 2^nd large downed tree and having experienced at least 3 sets of biting little bastard safari ants we got to the hard part. Yes the hard part. Everything up to this point was comparatively easy. Because up until now we had had something that resembled a path. Now at 2 hours in we were faced with the true impenetrable forest. To call what we followed next a shitty path is really an insult to self-respecting shitty paths all over the world. At its best it was slightly bent branches and reads that looked like they may have been stepped on once before. But often there was not even that. For a bunch of it we were just picking the clearest looking way through the trees and trying that. At other points we just hacked branches off and vines out of the way to get through. For much of the next 2 hours we were walking strait up and kind of switch backing a little bit to just not fall off the hill. Really it is hard to give you a full idea of this part of the trip. Picture on one side of you a slightly slanted wall covered in vines trees behind you trees on the wall and green everywhere you look. Plants and vines on the ground under you and somebody telling you that now you need to go straight up. Oh great. That is no problem at all. Mostly I kept my head down looking at my feet. Just looking far enough ahead to plan the next huge step I would need to take or the next tree I could grab onto. Every time I looked up basically I came face to face with extremely steep slope that if you believe hard enough you could imagine had places you could put your feet or your stick to not just slide all the way back to the bottom. The vegetation was spectacular the trees and bushes were extremely thick but the vines… the vines. They were both a help and a hindrance. At times they were tripping you and grabbing onto your legs and ankles. At others you were grabbing onto them just to stay upright and get to the next foot hold. It was about 20 minutes into this part of the climb that the helicopter ride they mentioned at the beginning for if you couldn’t make it started to sound like a much Much better idea than this. After about 1.25 hours of slogging up the side of the mountain we started to hear the trackers in the distance they would kind of hoot at us and our guide would call back to them giving us an idea of the direction we needed to head. About 10 minutes later we found what our tracker told us was fresh gorilla poop. I must say that I have never been so excited to see poop in my whole life. At this point there started to be cut marks in the trees and we basically went from one tree to the next following the rout the trackers took up to the gorillas. Soon after this one of the trackers met up with us and helped to guide us the rest of the way. I was excited now but was still not convinced I would make it. At one point I really wanted to stop and have a rest for a minute but Francis grabbed me by the arm and basically dragged me up the last 20m, I don’t know how I kept up it felt like he was running up the hill. When he finally let me stop I looked up and could see 2 gorillas walking about 10 m up from me in the trees. I started crying. I had really been convinced I would not make it. They were spectacular. It took about 5 minutes for the rest of the group to catch up with us and we made our way up the last few meters to where we could see the family.

When we walked into the almost clearing (if by clearing you mean 3 feet in 3 directions around a tree that had comparatively few vines and bushes in it) everybody’s jaw dropped. To one side we had 2 gorillas hanging out at the bottom of a tree with the baby climbing around in the top. To the other side we have a fallen tree by us and half a foot beyond that on a fallen log there was about 5 gorillas just chilling. About 5 minutes after we arrived we witnessed 2 silver back males have a bit of a growl at each other, this was defused by the head silver back coming over and showing his teeth at them so they backed down. The head of the family then went to sit on the log surrounded by his haram of females. Over the course of the hour we spent with the gorillas we got to watch them sleeping in the grass eating trees and wrestling with each other. We got to see the baby swing around on vines and generally make a nuisance of himself. There was one gorilla in particular that was intent on stealing our bags, so Adam kept scaring him off. Mostly we stood in awe staring at these massively huge powerful creatures who really for a lot of it looked board or sleepy. I think the most amazing part was how expressive their faces were. It was eerily close to most human expressions. In total we got to see 16 of the 24 gorillas in the family including 4 silverbacks and one baby. The Nshongi family we climbed to see was the largest but was also the highest. At a height of 2000m up they were as high as gorillas usually go and basically at the top of the mountain. By the one hour mark we were surrounded by gorillas, the ones in front of the log were still close enough to touch, but we had acquired gorillas behind us in the trees plotting to get to the bags, and on both sides just chilling and eating trees. After what seemed like way less than an hour our guide told us it was time to leave them alone and start heading back.

It was approximately 30 seconds after this that we heard ominous rumbling in the distance. We all went to our packs and put on rain pants and jackets. Just as we all finished putting on our rain gear the rain started. Big, fat drops of rainforest rain…. Yeah. Going down was going to be interesting.

In the interest of being fair I have to mention that there was one good point to the rain. The biting burrowing safari ants that had burrowed and crawled down shirts, up pant legs and through socks or gloves were mostly absent in the rain. The vines that covered the ground became unbelievably slick and I developed a death grip on my walking stick. At times it was only that stick that kept me from falling face down the whole mountain. The ground was muddy, wet and unstable. More or less you could not step anyplace somebody else had already stepped because it was a slid shoe print with no stability. The guides told us to try and step above where the last person had slid down but this was only marginally effective. For the most part we slid down the hill from vaguely flattish stable spot to the next. Well that was the idea anyhow. For a lot of it we just fell down parts of the mountain and grabbed onto the nearest convenient vine, tree or person to stop and then took a few more steps to the next slide and continued. We spent the next 2 hours effectively falling down a mountain. In this situation the bushes ended up being a bit of a help as they added stability to the slope and gave just a little bit of grip as we stumbled along. At one point while walking up a downed log one member of our party. For the sake of argument we will call her the little Tracy fell off. More like launched off the log really. Became air borne and fell head first into a tree. I had been standing a few inches in front of her and as she screamed I turned around in time to see most of it. The guard, guide and one of the trackers that had joined us ran down the hill to help her up. Luck was on our side and she was not hurt badly. She had banged her head a bit but seemed fine to continue till the end. It took far less time to fall down the mountain then it had taken to climb up it. We made it to the river and sketchy bridge number 2 in what felt like no time at all. It was just over an hour. Now we took a short break, striped off some of the rain gear and gloves then set off across the sketchy bridges and onto the uphill part at the end. I feel like putting a steep uphill climb at the end of a day full of steep uphill climbs is a particularly cruel joke to play on somebody. In the end we all managed to drag ourselves back up the farm terraces and pigme huts to the top of the hill.

Here we got certificates from the guides signifying that we had survived the day. We were then introduced to the t-shirts that Adam had been carrying in the strawberry shortcake bag and a few of us bought them. We said good bye and took some pictures of the mud covered soaked messes we were. It was now 6 pm and time for the 2 hour drive home.

This drive seemed to take forever. Back down the windy almost roads and through the narrow switchback turns we went. It was so bumpy and I was so worn out that for the first time in years I actually started to feel car sick. Fortunately by this point we were only about 10 min from the camp and we got out of the van to cheers from our fellow adventures…. Some of whom had not gone trekking that day… and the others who got back by 3…. By 3… seriously we had just made it up the hill at that point. This meant we had the bragging rights.

Freezing cold cut the water had soaked through or under my rain gear I nibbled on some food then went to have what I was really hoping would be a hot shower…. Nope.

The best thing I can say is it was not an ice cold shower. So grit my teeth and tried to very quickly remove the parts of the forest that had decided to come home with me. After sitting by the fire to warm up and dry my hair I fell into bed.

At the time of writing this some 26 hours after arriving back at camp my legs and in particular the muscles above my knees are still stiff and stairs have become more challenging than usual. Also I seem to have a sore right arm from the death grip I had on my stick and can hardly even make a fist. Still sitting here in front of a fire hurting far far less than I thought I would, I can say with complete sureness that was the hardest thing I have ever done. Man was it worth it. We may have climbed 4 times as high as the other group but we also got to see 4 times the gorillas. It is quite the story and back on the ground I am glad for how challenging it was. The struggle made the reward and the pride at succeeding so much the greater. It was an amazing day and I am really not sure how to top it.

pictures later when I have more then 10 minutes for them to upload

Saturday 17 September 2011

Switzerland

Switzerland

our adventure in Switzerland started in Geneva. we began as usual by finding our hostel. as it turns out this place was about 2 blocks from the lake so we decided to take a walk find some Swiss franks, some food and some chocolate. first we found the lake. it was beautiful and the water looked soo nice. so obviously I had to check and see how cold it was. after taking off my shoes and about 3 steps down the stone ramp both of my feet flew out from under me and I landed flat on my back in the water. don't worry it was not that cold. Erin being a fantastic sister had a really good laugh at my expense. so we sat on the dock so I could dry out marginally before we set off in search of food. we found food, chocolate and money in a grosery stroe not to far away and took our salads and chicken back to the beach for a picknick. that night sitting ont he dock we got to watch a hilarious display of a puppy trying to figure out if swans are evil or not... they are. a mother was getting her children to feed them and one started nibbling ont he girls leg... it was hilarious.

for the next day in Geneva we went for a walk to a swimming airea on the lake and had some beach like time. it was nice with our pick-nick lunch and the grass. the water was freezing however and so not much swimming happened. in the afternoon the weather turned cloudy and we called it a day early. on the way back to the hotel we stopped in at the history of science museum. by stopped in I mean I looked at everything and Erin went to the bathroom before waiting outside for me. that night we decided to go for a dinner of cheese fondue. it was an interesting meal being how it consists completely of bread and cheese. we were told white wine goes with it and apparently pear licour goes after it. I think our weightier was trying to get us drunk but it was all very good even tho I had a buz by the time we left.

the next stop on our swiss adventure was interlakken. it is hard to describe how beautiffle this place was. nesseled between 2 lakes with mountains on all sides it was very beautiful. the town was small and cute and had houses going up the sides of all the slopes around us. it was magic. after arriving in what has been the nicest hostel to date we put our bags down and picked up a add for paragliding. after about 10 minutes we had decided we wanted to go. so we went downstairs to reception to book it. about 5 minutes later we were running around putting on good shoes and grabbing money. 5 minutes after that we were on a buss going up the mountain. the flight was amazing. there is nothing quite like being in the air in my opinion. it is amazing the rush of the wind and the view you get of the hills and the lakes from up there was soo wonderful. I loved it, erin felt vaguely sick and all in all it was a fantastic time. note... we have a video of Erin having a very hard time in the air. it is really funny. once we got back on the ground we went to find food for the next days hike and dinner. dinner was lovely but the beer I had with it was absolutely delightful. it was clean and fresh and perhaps the best beer I have had. it was brewed in interlakken and I hope one day I will find it again.

day two in interlakken brought ous out of the town and into a smaller town higher up in the mountains. a place called latterburnnen. this was about half an hour away by train and was very prity. it is also known as the vally of 72 waterfalls and the ones we found were stunning. some fell from so high the water seemed to turn to mist half way down before flowing together again at the botom. we hiked up to a site in the mountains who has a name I cant remember how to sepll. it had 10 waterfalls in it that wound through the mountain in a series of tunnels caves and cat walks. most of the day was spent walking around and at the end of it we had a delightfull dinner of rotti or however you spell it. it is for the most part hashbrowns with all kinds of stuff and cheese on top. was very good.

the rest of our swiss adventure was spent wandering around train stations and airports ont he way to zuric and then to nairobi. in the train station in zurich however we found a woman selling mead. this was probably the best alcoholic drink I have ever had. sweet and beautiful and with almost none of that alcoholic bite to it. basically I could have sat there and had a whole bottle of it.

all in all our adventure to the land of decorative water fountains you can drink from, cheese and chocolate was a success. I would go back in a heart beet. now... on to africa.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Paris...

Paris

City of love, romance, passion…. I saw none of these things. For the most part I witnessed expensive food shopping and cars mixed in with old buildings and a strange Korean hostel.

For us the trip to Paris started off by trying to find our hostel. For the most part so far this has not been a terribly difficult ordeal. This time however it turned out to be fairly complicated. At the train station we first had to untangle the ball of string that is the Paris subway map and find our stop… right at the very end of a line. So far things were not looking exceptionally good, but we moved on. Now we decided it was time to fire up the lap top and write the directions the hostel gave us down on paper. At this point life started to get very interesting. So with sketchy directions in hand and a vague idea of how to find the metro station we wanted we wandered through the building looking for the metro station to start at.

After about an hour we found ourselves outside the metro station in what can only be described as the suburbs of Paris, nowhere near the center. Now we looked at the directions and took our first tentative steps along the path they set out for us. A first 60 steps, south from the station according to the paper. Where we should find a narrow ally way on the left that is probably not marked… oh boy. Well after 60 steps we where beside a hedge but another 23 steps later brought us to an ally way that did happen to be labelled. So being close enough to 60 if you were only rounding to the nearest 100 we decided to go this way. After following the labyrinth of directions we finally ended up going down the wrong street and were really starting to doubt finding this place at all. When off in the distance the sound of English voices with an Australian accent come to our rescue. Walking down a dirt path out of some kind of park they say. Hey you looking for the hostel? Its right over there. How did you get on this street?

And in a matter of minutes we were there. Looking at a hostel with Korean letters on the door and a happy but flustered woman leaning out of the window. We were let in and shown to our room then left to decipher the mystery of the communal shoes and various notes… such as no bathroom after midnight… what did that mean. What if I have to pee at 12:01? How strict is this rule? What if I get in there by 11:59? As it turns out only the shower was off limits after midnight. Guess they didn’t want any gremlins. Apart from being hard to find, having strange shoe related habits and no keys at all this hostel was nice and clean with a solid internet connection.

Day one in Paris was unfortunate to say the least, had we left the next day as planned we would have not enjoyed Paris at all.

The day started out dark and just cloudy enough that we chose to bring hoodies but not rain coats. As it turned out this was the wrong choice as it started raining almost immediately upon getting off the metro in the city center. Our first stop was the notra dame cathedral. And boy was it creepy. I must say that having that as your church would certainly shake the fear of god right into you. With gargoyles and towers and stone worked filigree it was basically something out of a fantasy novel. Well perhaps more accurately it was something to inspire a fantasy novel. We took pictures of the outside and even took a stroll through the interior. After a lunch of 16 euro hamburger we set off down the street through a cute little shopping area and poked into various stores. One was a shirt store that sold the most flamboyant collection of shirts I have ever seen. Others where chocolate shops and pastyr shops and a hat shop. In this particular shop I fell in love with a hat and being how it was cold out and my sweater has no hood I justified its purchase and have added a more grown up hat, one without horns to my winter head wear collection. The rest of the day was mostly spent in various stages of disappointment and bad mood. We went to the Louvre mostly with the intention of seeing the monalisa and it was ok. Small, looks nice, was underwhelming. This is how I felt about the Louvre in general. The sculptures were my favorite part the stone seemed to have a lot of life. The paintings were nice if very full of religion but for the most part we spent a lot of time wondering who decided that these pictures and sculptures in particular where the fantastic works of art that should be on display here. Who decided that Picasso was so great… I really don’t know. So after that we wandered around the city and decided for the most part paris is like any city big and loud. Eventually we got to this area referred to as the Latin Quarter and that was more fun. Here we had dinner and then went back to the Louvre because Erin was convinced it had some kind of light show at night… well it did light up, but that was about it and without the addition of the fountains it was fairly unimpressive. After waiting for an hour for a light show that was not delivered erin realized she was in desperate need of a toilet. On the way to the metro there was many signs depicting toilets and indicating where they might be found however Paris did not deliver on this promise.

The next day we set out with half hearted hope that Paris would be fun and set out to the mulon rouge. Here we found an interesting theater on a street full of sex shops and peep shows, complete with creepy guys in baggy pants coming out of the theaters. .. yeah you go city of romance.

So after a breakfast of a chocolate tart and our fill of laughing at the sex stores we set off to the Eiffel tower hoping that Paris would not disappoint us once more.

This time we were pleasantly surprised, the tower was really quite impressive and really neat to look at. We spent some time walking around it and then went for what can probably be called the best croissant of my life and some hot beverages at a small cafe where we could see the top of the tower through the trees. This was the wonderful Paris moment I had been waiting for. After this we walked back by the tower and found something resembling a fitness festival complete with zoomba on center stage. Naturally we had to join in. after a few songs we left and went back to the Latin Quarter for dinner. Once again the food was good and we indulged in French onion soup that can only be described as fantastic. Once dinner was finished we trekked back to the Eiffel tower for a light show we were still convinced might happen. So we sat down on the grass to wait. At about 8:30 the lights turned on and we got ourselves some crepes and ate them while waiting for the tower to “sparkle” this we got to see at 9 pm and took some pictures. We went back to our hostel soon after this glad that Paris had put in such an effort to redeem itself to us.

my new hat

louvre at night

eiffel tower at night.... see much more impressive

one of the hillarious sex stores

Friday 9 September 2011

San Sebastion

|Car ride to San Sebastion.

Well the day we went to San Sebastion started much like any other day, with a terrifying car ride in a country where you have only just figured out how to cross the street. Once we made it out of the large city it was mostly ok until we made it to the next city and had to navigate a labyrinth of traffic circles. This is a mostly unknown beast where I come from but know they are common in Spain. After 6 hours of navigating Spanish roads alone we reached our destination and after taking the least direct bus ever created we found the approximate location of our hostel. Some 20 min of walking around landed us in the right building and we settled into the room.

Before meeting up with our friend Olatz we took a walk about 2 blocks from the hostel to the beach. It was beautiful the sun was just setting over the ocean. The air was still warm and the park we walked into looked magical. Pictures really don’t do the place justice it was truly a perfect moment. Once we met up with Olatz. She took us to the “elephant walk street” (basically where the university students go on pub crawls), we had a tapas dinner at some of her favorite bars.

Our first full day was spent at the beach, the sand was beautiful but the water was very cold and much to Erin’s dismay full of fish and shrimp. Once we were done at the beach we met up with olatz for a walk around the sea wall ending in the new part of town and went out for Italian food.

The following day it was raining but this did not stop us from getting up and going out to the cider festival at 11:30 AM. For just 3.5 Euro we each got a glass and tickets for 10 samples… they were generous samples. After about 4 Erin and I were for sure feeling the effects of the drink. By the time we got to glass 7 we called it quits and had to hurry to meet Olatz and family for lunch and a trip to an old town. The town had a castle in it and for the most part resembled something like a historical village replica. This feeling that it was supposed to be fake was made even stranger by the realization that nope people lived in all of these buildings. After walking around and exploring we went to a small street fair and Oihan went on a bunch of rides.

The next day Erin and I went to catch a glimpse of some of the big rowing competition before meeting Olatz and going to her house for lunch. She made us paella and salad. It was very tasty, especially for Erin because the shrimp had no heads that had to be removed. After lunch we went on a walking adventure to another town that looked like it was a fake replica. This one was huddled on the side of a big hill and we had to take a 5 minut boat ride across the harbor to get to it. The town had probably 5 cars in it and that is good because it only had one street with lights at all the parts wide enough for 2 cars to pass to indicate who could go and who had to wait. If you tried to get 2 cars down most of those roads bad things would happen at points it was hardly big enough to fit a car and a skinny person side by side. Adding to the atmosphere of this place was the crazy steep moss covered staircases that didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Following this we had a relaxing day of wandering around and eating churros and chocolate, followed by the most amazing mushroom sandwiches ever. They were served by a grumpy fat woman and were perfectly garlic flavored and delicious.

Our last day in san sebastion found us at a very old amusement park. The way you get to this place is to go on a train car being pulled up the hill by a cable. It is rickety and slanted at an unbelievable angle. The little guy went on a bunch of rides and some we even joined him for. The rollercoaster was particularly terrifying as it had no seatbelts and just some guy sitting between the 2 cars with a hand break controlling the thing… yeah that doesn’t seem sketchy at all. Then we went on the little boat ride and almost sank. Regardless of this the view of the harbor from the top of the hill was amazing and we had a wonderful last day.

Next onto Paris.

Saturday 3 September 2011

La Tomatina

La Tomatina Aug 31

Well the best place to start an adventure like this one is to get up very early and start drinking. At least this was the theory we went with. So at the crack of 3 am we crawled out of bed and broke into the rum. At this point we started to construct backpacks out of dry bags and string , once that was successful we went over to the room with the other 3 Canadians in it. Once there we started writing on t-shirts, shorts and ourselves. 3 hours later decked out in Canadian flag tattoos and sharpie we headed out to the buss. Along the way to saint istasia station we met up with crowds of people all heading to bunol. Mostly it was Canadians and Australians. We believe this was because most of the locals think this is a crazy festival and why would you ever want to go. By the time we got to the commuter train station our group had grown to about 9 people, but the crowd had swelled significantly. The train station was being well controlled by transit guards and it was a fairly orderly event to get onto the train. 45 minutes and a short nap later we arrived in bunol.

At this point the crowds of people looked big but nothing like what we found later. For the most part we followed the flow of people down a street. It looked like the only way to go so what the hell. Along the way there was locals trying to sell us everything: sangria, beer, bag check, t-shirts, sandwiches, hot dogs, cheep sunglasses, goggles, you name it. Down and down and down some more we went into the center of the city. Along the way we were constantly getting our bags checked by guards to make sure we had no hard or sharp objects to throw in the crowd. It was at one such check point that we lost the other 3 canadians because they could not bring in their metal water bottles and had to check the bag they had. At around this point we encountered the snorkel bong guys. For reasons I can not explain they had a large container of sangria and a pump attached to a snorkel. They were getting people to come over and drink out of the snorkel. I did it and yeah it was a good deal of fun.

Now full of questionable sangria and getting excited we pass the last check point and get into the crush of people. At this point it was about 10 am and the climbing of the pole to knock off the ham was beginning. We never saw this. The crowd was so big at this point we got about half a block into it and were stopped by the huge mosh pit. Now it was about an hour of being in a huge crush of hot sweaty people doing really not much but trying to stay standing and not get shoved around by that guy who thinks he is special and tries to push his way to the front. During this time the locals amused themselves by throwing buckets of water onto the mass of people from windows and balcony’s. This was really a saving grace as I think a lot of people would have passed out from the heat without that way to cool down.

At 11 after an hour of being in this crush of people they fired the water cannon and a cheer rang up from the street… then nothing happened. We started to see groups of people coming from in front of us trying to get back out of the crowd, some of them were limping like they had sprained something and all of them looked really unhappy. At one point somebody told us they had thrown a few handfuls of tomatoes and now nothing was going on. Needles to say we were feeling disappointed and let down. It was going to be a sad day indeed if we went through all that only to throw no tomatoes.

Our fears were alleviated some 15 minutes after the water cannon went off as we spotted the tomato truck heading towards us. Now here is a thought experiment for you… if you have an extremely narrow ( one truck with) street with a narrow sidewalk on either side packed full of people…. Where do you put the truck.

Don’t worry if you cant figure it out I have an answer for you. You get 10 burly men in yellow vests to literally shove the crowd out of the way. Yes you read that right. The guys just walked forward and shoved people down ally ways and onto the sidewalk and ahead of the truck. Erin and I were lucky in that we already had ourselves on the sidewalk so we got shoved to the side instead of out front and ultimately out of the tomato zone as happened to a lot of people.

At this point things got nuts.

People where throwing tomatoes out of trucks and the crowd was getting excited. After the truck passed I lost Erin just seconds after we set a meeting point in case of getting lost. As the trucks went past a void of people was created behind them. We stepped into that void and I was almost immediately swept away by the crowd. So here I am walking some 2 feet from the back of this huge truck full of tomatoes. Grabbing tomatoes as they throw them off the truck or off the ground as they hit me. And all of a sudden the truck stopped. This didn’t seem like a big deal till the truck bed started to lift up… oh hell I thought things are going to get insane… and they did. So now here I am with a raging river of tomato pouring onto me. It was hitting me about in the hip. Needles to say it was getting hard to stand. The street was messy and slippery and I thought I was going to louse my shoes. At this point my main priority’s were to keep my shoes on and remain standing. To this end I grabbed onto the person next to me for balance, as somebody grabbed onto my other arm for the same purpose. Once the truck stopped dumping I was standing in tomato up to mid shin. So what do you do. I scooped it up and started throwing it. It was a lot of fun but very hard to see. My goggles got all fogged up and tomatoie leaving me with the dilemma of taking them off to contend with the acid in my eyes or leaving them off and guessing where I was. After some well placed tomatoes to the head and a handful of tomato being shoved in my face and then down my shirt I decided to keep them on.

Around this time the second truck came. Just like the first the burly men shoved us onto the sidewalk where we tried very hard to not get smashed by the truck and keep playing. It was after the 3^rd truck that I found myself in kind of a less crowded area. I guess by this point most of the trucks were out of tomato and people were more sparse. 3 more trucks came and I was still throwing tomatoes. After the last truck went past I went by the guards and waited for Erin. For a while I was worried about her because it took what felt like forever until I saw her.

Finally we were back together and we took some pictures of the aftermath. At this point tired and covered in tomato we made our way back up the hill getting sprayed by locals and trying to wash off under hoses on our way back to the train. By the platform there was some hoses set up to wash off under and we made our way back to Valencia.

It was a crazy experience. Far more violent and mosh pit like then I expected but still a worthy event and one I am glad I took part in.