La Tomatina

La Tomatina is held in a small village called Bunol which is about an hour away from Valencia. The festival has been held annually since 1944 and until 1975 it was a BYO tomatoes event, but since then the council of Bunol supplies the 125,000 kilos of tomatoes for the 40,000 people that come from all over the world every year! (Absolute madness I tell you!)

The fight begins at 11am and a convoy of about 5 trucks loaded with tomatoes enter the main town square and stop at various strategic points along the street to dump the tomatoes, however when they drive through the middle of the main street the people have no where to go so it becomes a big crushing war down the side streets. We experienced this first hand and had a horrible time getting squished up against the wall, there were girls near us who were crying and another who fainted, we’d had enough by the time the second truck came passed (and we still hadn’t seen a single tomato!) so our group decided to make our way out of the crowd before we got hurt any worse.

Niki and I lost the others we were with and then randomly spotted Toni and Debra on a quiet side street. Those girls had just been pummelled, had their t-shirts ripped and were covered in tomato from head to toe. So hilarious, they had been hardcore right in the main square and gave us the low-down of what happened and pointed us to a near street where all the action was happening. 10 minutes later Niki and I were both saturated and covered with tomatoes. The juice was gushing down the roads it was incredible. The craziest silliest thing ever and what a weird feeling to be drenched in tomatoes. Thankfully I was wearing goggles as a couple of guys thought it hilarious to throw a BUCKET full of tomatoes at me. Needless to say most of our clothes were left in Bunol…although the residents are lovely and all come out on the streets ready to hose you down!

We got back to the hostel at 3:30pm had a shower (obviously!) and then slept for a couple of hours. That night we went out for drinks and tapas before making our way to an open air night club by the beach which opened at midnight. The club was fabulous, all very swish and modern, and we were treated to some entertainment by stunning Brazilian dancers. I only wish I was as hardcore as some of the others we met – not returning home until we were getting up for breakfast the next day!