We are Aoûtiens - Part 3

August 25-28: Valencia, Spain

While the UK was lovely, we were craving a little sunshine. It was summer after all. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, which was a good thing because we were headed to the coast. Valencia is Spain's third largest city but still manages to maintain that sleepy village feel in the old part of town. 15th century architecture, picturesque parks, and beautiful sandy beaches abound, but our main reason for visiting was the annual Tomatina festival in nearby Buñol. You have probably seen or heard of this event: It's the one where they dump truckloads of tomatoes in the street and hoards of drunk tourists sling them at each other in what must be the world's largest food fight. Yup, we're doing that.

Jason had organized the whole trip, as per the usual, and got us a place with the tour group This Is Valencia. They arranged a welcome party with plenty of snacks and drinks so that we could mix and mingle with other folks on the tour.  Our fellow festival-goers were a ragtag bunch of people who were probably too old to be doing this, but nothing says reclaiming your youth like day drinking and throwing tomatoes at strangers! In a group of 150 tourists, you're bound to have a few weirdos, but we seemed to have them in spades on this particular trip. The first guy we met ACTUALLY opened with this line: "Do you have a little Irish in you? Would you like some?" Oh, sir. I will have a tomato ready for your face tomorrow. We sat down with a crew of American colleagues who were passing around a goatskin flask of Jager, which is kind of funny when you're 20 but kind of sad when you're 45. Sadder still was that the most mentally stable and well-adjusted people we met the whole weekend were Canadians. What is this world coming to???

After a night of free sangria and awkward conversation, we donned our shittiest clothes, knowing that they would be completely covered in tomatoes after the fight, and boarded the 9am bus for Buñol.

Ready for action!

Our path from the parking lot to the city center was lined with vendors offering drinks, waterproof disposable cameras, goggles, t-shirts, and a great number of Spanish street snacks. We were walking a bit aimlessly and didn't even realize that we had strolled right into the main square of town where the festivities would kick off.

Here's the scene: 30,000 festival attendees at various levels of inebriation filled the tiny streets, cheering and chanting for the arrival of the tomatoes. The residents had draped long tarps over their street-facing windows and some of them were manning "water stations" (read: fire hoses), strategically dispersed along the festival route. The occasional blast of cold water brought welcome relief from the already sweltering heat of the morning sun. A soapy 15-ft pole was positioned at the edge of the square, with a leg of jamón tied to the top. At the sound of a cannon blast, those who were close enough to the pole tried to scramble up it and cut the ham down, thus signaling the start of the festival. Many attempts were made, and a few came close to loosing the ham from its slippery perch, but the mob was more interested in yanking people down than lifting them up.

Watching people trying to climb the soapy pole

At 11am sharp, another cannon blast was heard and the trucks arrived. Not even Moses could have cleared a path so quickly, and as soon as the tomatoes were dumped in the street, we had our own Red Sea to navigate. Festival rules dictate that you have to crush the tomatoes before throwing them to avoid serious injury, but when you're surrounded by tens of thousands of crazed tourists, the real thing you're worried about is getting crushed yourself. On several occasions, I was moving forward but my feet were not touching the ground.

Tomato throwing was nearly impossible because there was no room to bend over and pick one up from the street, and if by some miracle you were able to get one, you couldn't get enough arm room to actually throw the damn thing. The goggles that were provided by our tour group were instantly broken and fogged up, rendering them absolutely useless. Between the tomato juice and the hose water, if I had brought some cilantro, we would have been up to our ankles in gazpacho. Someone had a large cup that they were using to scoop the liquid from the street and dump it on people, and I was lucky enough to catch a full face of this incredibly sanitary cocktail. I don't know if it was the acid from the tomatoes or the grime from the streets, but my eyes started to burn with the fire of a thousands suns.

After an hour or so of this insanity, a final cannon shot signaled the end of the event. We narrowly escaped death by stampede on our way to find somewhere to wash off. There were a few shower stations, but they all seemed to have super long lines so we opted for the low-tech route: villagers with hoses. While I was grateful for their generosity, it did strike me as a bit suspicious that the Spanish men would give the guys about 30 seconds under the hose and the girls got a solid minute and a half. "You still have a little tomato right there. Let me just get that for you..."

I can't see anything at this moment.

We made our way slowly back up the hill to our bus, and they drove us to a lovely little spot for lunch. There were real showers, buckets of paella, endless sangria and a pool surrounded by nice, shady trees. It would have been nice to see it but I was temporarily blinded from all the dirty tomato juice in my face. My eyes tried to combat the intrusion by pumping out gallons of mucus and no matter how much I wiped it away, it kept coming back. I had a goopy cloud over my eyes for the rest of the day. Thanks for this very attractive biological response, immune system!  I'm glad this was a day when I was talking to lots of strangers!

We spent most of the afternoon eating, drinking and chatting with our Canadian friends from the night before. We were pretty tired when we got back to Valencia, and I was still blind, so we got some take out and went to bed early.

My vision returned the next day and we decided to venture out and explore the city a little. We saw lots of cool thing but I couldn't tell you what any of them are. I was tired, okay? I left the guide book at home. It was also 42˚C that day, making it much too hot to think or remember stuff. All in all, our time in Valencia was pretty solid. Some quality R&R on the beach was much needed and it's always great to explore a new city. Despite a little blindness and a little blistering heat, we were glad to have experienced the Tomatina, if for nothing else but to know that we will never, ever do it again.

Here are some pictures that were not taken on a shitty disposable camera!