Over The Edge: 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.