Don't bother correcting the title if it doesn't make sense, truth is my spanish is about as extensive as my russian. Having left England knowing only how to say yes, no and thank you, I've now doubled my knowledge of the spanish language. Truth is Spain would be like America in that there was only one reason I was going there and new reasons why I wouldn't be going back. Where America is home to New York, Spain is home to the fiesta, the one in which I would be seeing is in the Guiness book of world records as the world's biggest food fight - La Tomatina.
But that'll come later, especially as you won't see any tomato pics until the film from the waterproof camera gets developed...
Valencia itself is a cracking place to visit, both the old and the new architecture is stunning and looks great side by side. I'm always a sucker for beautiful pics whether they're natural or architectural and had it not been for the weather, i'd have snapped a lot more.
When I say the weather was bad, I mean for all but 99% of the population. Coming out of the air conditioned Metro into a 33 degree heat is a shock for the British Autumn loving yours truly. The first night the girls from PP Travel had arranged for everyone to go to a club called High Cube at the Valencian harbour, it was always just off the Formula 1 racetrack which was pretty cool as we got to walk on the track itself. I gotta say the club looked more like a garden centre so I checked out the beach instead. Everything except the suncream is really cheap over there, as usual I found it best to get nosh from one of the vendors. Saying that most of the food was pretty crap over there, I never know how Britain ever got such a bad reputation for it's food with some of the stuff I've had abroad.
Apparently every spanish town has it's own festival. Pamplona is well known for it's bull run and even Valencia where I stayed has a smaller version of it. La Tomatina though is the festival of Buñol, a small town just down the road from Valencia. Home to 4,500 people, 10 times that many people showed up for the festival which is getting bigger by the year. No one knows how it all started and the powers that be only made it official back in 1972 and put it on the map. The venue is easy to find as you basically follow the crowd when you get there. Problem is finding the best place while you're down there. If you imagine 45,000 people crowding in and around somewhere half the size of Friar Street and the smaller streets leading off it you'll have a good example of what it was like. When you get there you can see a large greased pole with a leg of ham tied up at the top. There's a frantic scramble of people trying increasingly inspired methods of reaching the top with others trying to climb over them as the festival starts once some one gets the ham off the top. One bloke managed to go from legend to bandit in a second as he managed to touch the ham, saluting the crowd as he did, before sliding back down the pole without yanking the thing off to start the festival proper! After a while though the trucks starting coming anyway. I soon realised I was seriously in the wrong place for getting stuck in the action. I was right by the water cannons and away from the tomatoes. What worse worse is that the huge trucks containing the tomatoes (and some people inside chucking some at you) were making their way through the already packed out crowds. After the 5th truck had gone through and i'd had my 100th elbow in the ribs i'd had enough. I was only partially covered in ketchup and to be honest, freaking out at the massive crush that was forming. I managed to find a side street and that was by far the best pelting I got :) Although I was pretty gutted about getting crushed and bruised, i was more annoyed that I hadn't got covered in gunk, thanks mainly to the water cannon aimed at us! That soon changed o
nce I found this side street as there was room to move and more importantly, room to throw and get thrown at. After an hour of the start a bang went off to signify the end of the chucking and
the start of the big clean up. The locals all came out with their hoses and started hosing everyone down. Every balcony had people chucking water over people; considering we'd pretty much just wrecked their town they all looked really happy people, no one looked annoyed at all. Apart from one casualty I saw being carried through the crowd, amazingly there didn't seem to be anyone else even remotely injured. On the way back I got my 'shot' (which i'm keeping everything crossed comes out OK from the camera.) Some dudes had dressed all in white as sailors and a load of them lifted me up for what was the last shot in the camera. If the oriental girl took it OK, the camera stayed undamaged and the film develops OK then you should see the picture below in a week or so...
The 3rd day was 12 hours of boredom which i'll write about then happily forget. Needless to say I love my country but hate it's public transport network in the wee hours of the mornin
g. Train from Gatwick to London Euston, underground closed
so bus to Paddington, then train to Reading then the long walk home. There, and now forgotten. However if we're having the Olympics then hoping to get the world cup in 2018 you gotta sort this out Boris, I was with a lot of very helpless and confused looking foreign travellers.
Tomatina is epic, if you're ever tempted though make sure you make it past the pole with the ham whatever you do. Thanks to PP Travel for making it happen and the usual random people who made it memorable including Mick from Australia, David from Califronia, the hot Louisa Lytton look a like Policia lady and the woman who tried walking through customs without showing her passport.
Rossifer x
