Tomatina!

According to legend the worlds biggest annual food fight got its start as a joke among friends. To celebrate the end of the week long festival held every year in Bunol, a small group of amigos randomly started throwing tomatoes at one another. Add a few years, 150,000 tomatoes and 40,000 people, pack them into a rural Catalon town in Bunol, and presto….La Tomatina is born!

Since the early stages of planning for our trip Chels and I have held La Tomatina top on our list of festivals to visit. So when our good friends from Santorini, Drew, Hannah and Racheal decided they were going to come with us, we were more than thrilled to have targets when the tomatoes started to fly!

Our crew!

We left the night before the festivities and took with us a crew of about 8,including Chels and I. We cruised threw ground zero and noticed people preparing their houses with tarps and plywood. (We heard stories about people breaking down doors and coating the insides of houses with tomatoes.) We found some tables, settled in, caught up with our Santorini crew and played some card games till we were ready to go to bed.  I made sure to give out plenty of carrots to everyone to provide SOME nutrition for the night! Now the only problem was to find a spot to sleep.

Fun!

The next hour was spent exploring the areas around Bunol for a nice pitch for our tents. There was this nice secluded area with a night club nearby which provided us with some nice lullaby music!

Awoken by roosters and murmurs of people LEAVING the club, we were ready to get the day started (although a tad bit slow from a night of drinking). It was only 8am when we armed ourselves with massive cups of sangria and goggles before we found our way to the massive crowd of people just waiting for the festivities to get started. First was the Greasy Pole contest, where (drunk) guys attempt to climb to the top of a greased pole to reach the ham…..a great way to get people rowdy and excited. Then at exactly 11am, a loud firework cracks!

TOMATO-THROWING TIME!!!! All the locals that were hanging out on their rooftops spectating….were now the locals pelting everyone with tomatoes. They had CRATEFULS after cratefuls of semi-soft tomatoes….it was never-ending. Those that weren’t throwing tomatoes were unloading gallons and gallons of water onto the crowd. It was really fun but nothing compared to what was next with the dump trucks.

Dump truck!

Ahhh!

About 30 minutes after the fireworks, the first dumptruck of 5 rolled through FILLED with tomatoes. Everyone starts screaming and yelling and throwing anything they can get their hands on (usually either tomato remains or soaking wet shirts). There was a constant stream of hoses to try to keep the tomatoes from staining everything red in this town, but it made for a fun time. The people up high were the best targets, and at one point i got on Brad’s shoulders for a couple minutes before being absolutely pelted with tomatoes! It was incredible! Fun, crazy, an indescribable experience. I’ve always always wanted to have massive food fight at school, and here we are at the WORLDS BIGGEST FOODFIGHT!!!

When the official “end of Tomatina” firework went off, we were sad to realize it was over so quickly. Everyone started dispersing and following the dumptruck down the street….a couple guys ran and jumped in the trucks and just started flinging tomato juice everywhere!! It was great…the cops didn’t do anything about it either! It was hilarious to see everyone just covered in red and dirty clothes, ripped clothes walking around! We found a nice shady spot to hang around in and watch as everyone slowly rolled back to Valencia. I think we were under the impression there would be parties all night in Bunol, but by 4pm it was not only a ghost town, but it was SPOTLESS!! The clean up crew is incredibly efficient!

Frands!

So there we were, the Santorini crew…the only young people left in the town…chilling and reminiscing on what we just experienced and enjoying each others company for the rest of the night! It was an unforgettable experience…and even better that it was with friends

Late-night camping!