Tomatina!

Yesterday was Tomatina, a freaking MASSIVE tomato foodfight that goes down in Buñol annually. Not willing to miss such an event while so close by, Ben, Nicole and I fought our way in there. Thousands and thousands of people crammed into this small town, the action went down in the main square and the streets leading off of it. The local residents had lined all the buildings with huge plastic tarps, and were on the roofs with hoses and buckets of water soaking everyone below. There was a long time to wait until they drove the six or seven trucks of tomatoes through the streets, during which the main activity was to rip other people´s shirts off and play wet t-shirt dodgeball. As soon as a small gang of shirtless guys began tearing off shirts I took mine off, stuffed it in my pocket and joined them. Wet t-shirts hurt when they´re tied up in knots, soaking in water, and pegged at your face. The stakes were high.

In the main square is a greased pole with a ham at the top that people are meant to try to get. Many tried, I don´t think anyone succeeded.

Then the trucks came through one by one and dumped over 150 metric tons of tomatoes on everybody. SO MANY TOMATOES. The streets were calf deep in tomatoes in places. The atmosphere was like a big jolly mosh pit, people were looking out for each other in a situation where it would have been reeeaaaaallly easy to fall below and get trampled.

On the way out of town the locals took great pleasure in hosing down the tomato fighters. The old men especially enjoyed hosing off bikini clad hotties. They did a decent job of getting us clean, but tomato had found its way into every crevice. I´m not sure my shoes will ever not smell like tomatoes. I also have some mysterious red dots (along with a number of semi-explainable bruises and scrapes) on me that are hopefully not a terrible skin disease.

Getting into Barcelona tomorrow, any tips?