La Tomatina

La Tomatina. Equal parts terror and exhilaration mixed with 60 tonnes of over-ripe tomatoes and 20,000 Australians in yellow Fanatics t-shirts. After a sleepless night spent tossing and turning in excited expectation we rolled into the tiny village of Bunol on the fringes of Valencia and walked down the hill towards the town square. We promptly hit a wall of bodies swilling down litres of beer and sangria like it was water and deciding we could advance no further cracked open our one Euro cartons of Don Simon sangria, sauntered up a side alley off the main thoroughfare, and sat waiting for the festivities to kick into full swing. After two hours spent watching Spaniards ripping Australian womens’ already soaking shirts off and flinging them at unsuspecting spectators we started to think we had come to the wrong festival. But before long a rocket exploded in the distance, the crowd erupted with dancing, cries of “ole!”, and more spraying of beverages and the first of many body-crushing moments began as throngs of people forced their way down a narrow cobbled street towards the town square and the tomatoes.

After a further 20 minutes went by without any sign of tomatoes our early doubts began to reemerge. Finally we saw a large excavation truck inching its way through the hoards of spectators but sadly it appeared its precious cargo had already been offloaded. A further four empty trucks drove slowly past, crushing people up against the old rock walls as they passed before a truck bearing tomatoes made its way to us. Unfortunately by the time it arrived we were pushed up against a garage door with our arms so firmly pinned to our sides that we could barely throw a thing. We were hit however…many, many times by cocky Spaniards perched on the top of the truck like cowardly snipers. As the truck pulled away another rocked fired signalling the end of the throwing and the folks who had made it to the town square decided they’d had enough of the festivities and began pushing back the other way uphill.

We were in the midst of a human stampede; think Big Day Out but without the music to sweeten the blows. A few people lost their footing only to re-emerge blue in the face moments later. It was utter chaos. It is very rare that you find yourself in a situation where you are quite sure someone around you is going to die and there were a few occasions there where it could have been one of us. I am not sure if this happens every year but I think perhaps the strong Aussie dollar combined with Australian’s love of alcohol and inflicting pain on strangers created a perfect Tomatina storm and the tiny town was packed well beyond its capacity. One thing is for sure, I will never, ever forget the smell of rotten tomatoes combined with fear-tinged body odour.

After 15 minutes in Satan’s moshpit we emerged from the milieu rattled but unscathed and covered head to toe in tomatoe skins, pulp and seeds. Walking back up the hill towards Chloe we were filled with that adrenaline fuelled exhilaration that comes with surviving something so utterly insane and like hostage victims with Stockholm syndrome we found ourselves looking back lovingly on the event through cognitive dissonance coloured glasses. As the europop jangled through the streets and the revellers cleaned the remnants of the red fruit from their clothes we raised sangria filled plastic cups to the hot blue Spanish sky and thanked the gods for La Tomatina.

(Photos for this post were sourced from news.com.au as our camera was safely stowed away inside Chloe to prevent tomato damage)