Today we traveled from Valencia to the small town of Buñol for the annual tomato fight, La Tomatina. The city´s usual population is 9,000, but today it was at least 60,000. It was tomato madness!
There were 120 tons of very ripe tomatoes being flung from giant trucks throughout town. By the end of it, there were chunks of tomato in our hair, noses, shirts, shoes, and everywhere else. Good thing we wore goggles...we´d have been blinded without them.
We found the perfect place to stand in the crowd, next to a bridge wall so we could have something to hold on to. It was also a perfect people watching spot! There were people in costumes all over the place...men in briefs, people with wigs, men in women´s dresses, carved out watermelon helmets, a bathrobe, a pikachu pokeman costume, batman costume, and pool floaties.
Buñol residents dumped buckets of water and sprayed hoses from their balconies on the enormous crowd below. The water helped wash away some of the booze. Keep in mind that this was 50,000 Europeans, after all. We may have been the only two sober people in the entire city.
We took a million pictures with my new waterproof camera, but again, our hotel internet is slow and won´t upload, so pictures coming later!!!
The best decision we made was to rent a car and drive ourselves there so we didn´t have to ride back on a train or bus with smelly, drunk, tomato juiced people. Best decision ever. After we got back we got ready and went to dinner. I ordered a salad, then literally gagged at the smell of the tomato on the lettuce. We may not eat tomatoes for a while.
Other than that, it was a great day and a once in a lifetime experience! It´s exactly like the pictures you google about La Tomatina, only crazier.
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