For ser. This is it.
"What?", you say? "Wasn't that like... 6 months ago, ABBEY... why haven't you already recounted what happened at La Tomatina and how come EVERYONE else who was there has already written about it?"
Well. That is because I am lazy. And I had a lot on my plate. And well. Writing this post seemed somewhat daunting because it's incredibly content heavy. So rather than do it all on my own, I figured I'd wait until EVERYONE who I traveled to Valencia with for La Tomatina finished their own blog posts and then I would expand. Please keep in mind that somewhere between 5-95% of the content below has been directly plagerized from these people's sites. But since I backlink 100,000 times per person, hopefully they don't care. (*Afterthought* - if you do care, I'm sorry. Nah, no not really.) Oh ya and I also use NONE of my own photos because I didn't take a camera (seriously? you expect my clumsy ass to keep ahold of a camera in a tomato fight while intoxicated? Impossible). I'm about to name drop like nobody's business.
Online Party Poker es.partypoker.com
Back in the spring sometime, when The Aussie Nomad and I were filled with jealous rage of the timing and location selection of the Travel Blog Exchange Event this past summer (which was held without us in New York) we decided that we were going to have our own event. Several ideas of meetups were pitched, including actually meeting up and watching the broadcasts (*yawn*) of the TBEX10 events from somewhere in the Europes. However, being that this was a lame idea, we quickly vetoed and thought of another: how about we go do something fun and awesome and amazing like La Tomatina instead and just invite all the Euro based travel bloggers? BRILL!
Courtesy of DaveSo plans ensued, and myself, Christine of C'est Christine and Suzy Guese booked a hotel room together in Valencia for the days surrounding the festival in nearby Buñol. After conning Joel of Freedonia Post and Dave of What's Dave Doing to come with us (and book separate "boys-are-smelly" rooms at the same hotel). Christine, Suzy and Dave booked tickets on the Busabout tour, while Joel and myself (the lazy-asses of the group) booked ourself on the This is Valencia bus tour.
Upon first arriving in Valencia on the Tuesday before the festival (Thursday) we all met up for dinner in the Plaza de la Virgin (appropriate, I thought) and also met up with Linda and Craig of Indie Travel Podcast (told you I could keep this name dropping thing going all day) and schemed. Then in true "me" fashion, I lured Dave and Joel into essentially pulling an all night binge fest with me and some guy we code-named Bi-Curious George who was an American who felt that his best pick-up line for me was to recount to me the time when he hooked up with one of his guy friends and "Does that mean I'm gay?" I fall for that one every time.
My Wednesday consisted of sleeping until noon, taking a bath in our amazing hotel, walking around Valencia and doing relatively nothing. We had an easy night as we wanted to be well stocked on energy for our full day Thursday.
Courtesy of @flydimeLa Tomatina was everything I would have ever thought it would be. It was basically a giant frat party (think 40,000+ people) mostly Americans and Aussies (we DEFINITELY out-numbered the Spanish) dressed up with inflatable tubes, life vests, floaties and wife-beaters (literal frat party). Joel, Joel's friend and myself rode up together on the This is Valencia bus and shotgunned a few beers and a bag of chips on the way. Once we got to Buñol, we happened to run into Dave, Christine and Suzy who were waiting in line for the bathroom and got some more beers, a JUG of Sangria for €1 (from some guy's front porch, he was pouring it out of a Sprite bottle) and chugged away.
Courtesy of ChristineWe finally stumbled into the center of town and pushed our way closer to where the action would be. In the process, Dave and I lost Joel, Christine and Suzy. We got to the point where we literally couldn't move anymore. My feet would periodically get lifted off the ground as the crowd would push and all of us would fall on top of eachother. Seven stories above us, an apartment party was chunking buckets of water over their rooftop and we were grateful, as it was hella hot. After about an hour of waiting, we heard the cannon sound that the ham had been seized from the ham seizing pole and the trucks started to file through.
Courtesy of @flydimeI would have loved to watch the process from above as I'm sure it was way more hilarious. We would back up against the walls when the dump trucks full of tomatoes piled through, only there wasn't enough room. The one time I was on the front line against the dump truck, I had to walk up the side of the truck and use it to push back against the crowd behind me, using my feet to push me far enough out of the way of the 50" tracter tires plowing over toes. I kept screaming at Dave to grab me and pull and I'm sure he was, but I literally thought I was going to get run over and get mushed into the spaghetti sauce on the floor. It was incredible.
Courtesy of Dave (Right as a tomato hit his camera)We got our fair share of tomato throwing and took our "we were here" shots to prove that we really did it. We stumbled drunk and wet back to the bus area after getting hosed off by a couple locals and then getting a watering can of Sangria poured directly down my throat. At this point, we loaded back on our bus and headed home. Or so we thought. I won't take the time to talk about how shitty the rest of our bus tour was, because I don't really think talking shit about the tour company will do anyone any good, but I'll just say. Read Joel's post on "Seven Things to Avoid at La Tomatina" and trust me when I say, DO NOT TAKE THE THIS IS VALENCIA BUS TOUR. Sorr bout the bag guys, it was fine on the way up there, but I would have given you $100 to just take us home. Let me just say that Joel and I spent the afternoon sleeping in the shade of our tourbus on the asphalt using our towels and tomato soaked clothes as pillows because we were so day-hungover we couldn't move.
Dave had a much more detailed (I guess I may have been the only drunk one) depiction of the afternoon as well as his own set of tips "La Tomatina. Anyone for Ketchup?"
Craig and Linda, though the least prepared of our group, seemed to actually end up having the best experience overall and pod (is that the correct verb conjugation for "to podcast") about it on their podcast 165 and write a little blurb about it on their blog as well.
Finally, Christine managed to snap some of the best pictures I saw from the event this year (that I wasn't in, obvs) and highlights them in her blog post Postcard from La Tomatina.
External links you should check out if you want more info or are thinking about going to La Tomatina yourself:
Valencia, Spain on Wikipedia - Wikitravel - Lonely Planet
Buñol, Spain on Wikipedia - Wikitravel
La Tomatina on Wikipedia - Lonely Planet - Busabout Tour