Wednesday 27-08 - La Tomatina

Over the course of the day I experience a wide variety of emotions.

Excitement

We woke up early. Got dressed straight away in our special tomatina gear. For me this meant my black shorts, a double layer of cheap pink tops and bathers that were already stained from mud baths. I wore the new cheap gold sneakers. Down we trod to the bus stop. We even missed breakfast. There were other English speakers waiting in similar gear. They had been waiting 15 minutes more than us and the earlier bus hadn't shown.

Annoyance

We waited and waited and no bus came. 10 minutes late. 20 minutes late. 30 minutes. I was getting hungry. We could have eaten the breakfast at this rate. Some of the group went to the other bus stop. The rest continued to wait. Eventually more of the group jumped in a random Spanish guys van to another stop. Only a few of us were left. Eventually we gave in and walked to the other stop. It would be another 30 minutes until the next bus. A taxi came past and we flagged it down. It couldn't fit everyone. Actually, it could fit everyone except Dani,Josh and I. So in the end it was just the three of us sitting on the side of a highway for a possible bus.

Hopefullness

A trip that should have taken 30 minutes took 2 hours after all of that. We got to the station and jumped on the metro to get to the rural train station. On the bus I thought ¨there is still 2 hours before the fight starts, we will be ok and get there in time¨. We had even played with the idea of not going, in our most hopeless of moments. But I thought to myself, it will ok. The fight only starts at 11.

Frustration, Anger, hopelessness

We jumped off the metro with the crowds climbed up the metal staircase. With each flight I became a little more excited. The train was there, about to leave a few minutes later. We rushed through the turnstyle. Every door of the train had people hanging out of it. The security personnel made it clear that we were not getting on that train. We stood with the group with sad faces at the end of the platform, who had also been barred. It was only then I found out that the next train was at 10-15 and took over 45 minutes. I knew then that everything would not be ok.

I felt anger and hopelessness wash over me. I tensed up and freaked out. Dani tried to calm me down but I didn't want to be calmed. I wanted to be angry and tense. So for an hour we sat on the platform with the other forgotten children. We chatted to guys doing language courses from London.

Excitement

The train arrived on time and we got on. Everyone was getting excited. It got us there on 11 on the dot.

Now I was all pumped up. We walked quickly down the long road. We didnt stop to eat or drink or buy disposable cameras (hence the lack of photos).

Thinking I was going to die

We pushed our way into the crowd. It got more tightly packed with every step until we reached a small street. I couldn't see any tomato fighting, maybe we had missed it? The huge tomato tankers drove towards us. The already packed street parted to let it through, so that our only space had been halved. Everyone become pressure packed, worse than almost any mosh pit. At any moment I thought my ribs would give way. I kept my headed tilted up in an attempt for fresh air. I have no way to gauge the time that passed. It felt like an eternity.

More people tried to push into us from the outside. We were shoved forward in short bursts, each knocking my legs from under me as I struggled to stay standing. I didn't want to think of what would happen if I got caught under the crowd. We were like a glacier. Moving slowly and surely along our path between the walls. Nothing could break the dense mass.

I heard a girl next to me scream. I heard myself scream with each painful wave. I heard Dani calling ¨help her, help her¨, like there was some way anyone could have. No one was in any position to raise an arm, let alone help. All the crowd could do was try to keep breathing and keep moving. Girls were clinging to windows above us like a tree branch in a torrenting flood. Eventually it started to thin out. We went towards the less crowded street. Through some miracle the three of us managed to stay together through it.

Adrenalin

We found ourselves suddenly in another small street with some people in it. Many had come from the crush with us and were panting. Dani and Josh just wanted to get out of it all. We thought this was the whole festival. I had been pumped full of Adrenalin doing the crush and now it was pouring through me. I was bouncing off the ceiling with energy. The other two kept on having to pull me back while they caught up. We noticed that people covered in thick tomato were still emerging from one direction. So we walked that way. There was more and more tomato mush on the floor. I thought, this nice a few tomatoes throw. We turned another corner.

Then we saw it. We had found La Tomatina.

Absolute Joy

A thin sloping alley. There were people,but not in a crush. Just enough people and just enough space. A thick tomato puree with chunks was pouring like lava, flowing thick down the streets so that it covered our feet. So we fought with tomatoes. We scooped up the ammunition the threw it at someone or at no one in particular. And everyone threw it back at us.

It took only a moment to get used to the smell. Only a moment to get used to the sensation of the goop hit your skin and being smooshed into your clothes. To not care every time it covered your hair. The slippery ground was hard to get up. One had to hold the wall to move upwards. We stayed on the slope for a bit. Then we moved up to the flat main street above. The experience was surreal. The river went higher than my ankles. My world was red and pink. My eyes stung from the acid but I didn´t care. We danced and jumped and threw. We tossed red at people.

Contentment

I was happy. We walked down a street to th river. Every few meters was a local with hose. We would stop for a few seconds to stand under each, getting a little cleaner. We walked further to the empty river bed, where we found a mass of metal showers. It was good to be clean again. I dumped my socks and a layer of shirt that weren´t salvageable. There we wondered the streets.

Concern

As we walked the locals were already in the clean up process. Every street was water and tomatoes. Dani slipped on a tomato bit and grazed her elbow. The cut wasn´t too bad but we hadn´t eaten or drunk anything the entire day and had also been crushed. She felt light headed and couldn´t stand. A nice local lady washed her cut and showed us to the medical room. The doctor disinfected the cut and made sure she was ok. I got the chance to chat to him for a bit using my basic Spanish. We compared medical schools in the different countries. I asked what they saw most of at the med tent. They said in previous years lots of drinking, but this year it was mostly head injuries and scrapes. From the walls and tomato beatings.

Exhaustion

We found food and the train station. We were tired and wanted to get back to the hotel. The queue to get into the station took an hour, in which we had to stand in the sun and some got burnt. Tops and shoes were needed to board the train, items that many were now lacking. So people grabbed clothed from the mess. Girls walked onto the bus with a small black converse shoe and a giant orange sandal. Guys wore girlie strappy tops. Funny stuff. Everyone was pink, as most had been wearing something white before the fight. The train barely had sitting room on the floor. A few hours later our bus arrived at our hotel.

The day was intense. I did enjoy it, but I don´t know if I would need to do it again. Doing something a second time is never quite the same. But I´m glad I did it.