La Tomatina Festival
“The tomato is a thick-skinned deity with acute seeds of wisdom immersed in its juicy corridors, a symbolic fountain of love, a sun-kissed embrace of the earth’s nectar.” — Amelia Dashwood
It can also be an object that you run away from, in fear, while it comes hurling at you at epic speeds!
The La Tomatina is an iconic and unique festival celebrated annually in the town of Buñol near Valencia, Spain. This festival is renowned for its lively and exuberant atmosphere, drawing participants and spectators from around the world.
La Tomatina originated in the mid-20th century, with its exact origins being somewhat unclear. One popular story is that it began in 1945 when a group of young people decided to engage in a tomato fight during a traditional parade.
The festival takes place on the last Wednesday of August each year. The event usually kicks off in the morning with the “palo jabón,” a greased pole climbing contest, and the main tomato fight begins in the late morning and lasts for about one hour.
The highlight of La Tomatina is the massive food fight where participants throw overripe tomatoes at each other. Trucks loaded with tomatoes arrive in the town square, and the chaos ensues as people engage in friendly tomato warfare. The sheer volume of tomatoes used during the festival is staggering.
WRONG.
The warfare is NOT friendly! It is insane! Instructions are given for the tomatoes to be squeezed and then thrown at people. Instead, people slam you with the tomatoes head on and its painful.
The main event begins when trucks loaded with overripe tomatoes enter the town square. The sight of the tomatoes and the countdown to the start of the tomato fight build anticipation and excitement among the participants.
As the signal is given, the tomato fight erupts, and chaos ensues. The town square transforms into a sea of red as participants gleefully hurl tomatoes at one another. The air is filled with laughter, shouts, and the squelchy sound of tomatoes hitting their targets. The sheer joy of being part of this massive food fight is an unforgettable experience and the fact that you can almost get killed, just by being hit really hard by a tomato, flung from across the street.
There was so much chaos when I was there, that a girl fell and broke her leg during the fest and an ambulance had to drive in through the river of tomato pulped streets to reach her. This was a massive effort as there was no space for movement, and a whole vehicle was trying to get through!
All the alleys get filled with tomato goop and it becomes a red river you have to wade through. Here and there you see a few drunk people who dunk their cups into that river and try to drink the flavored goop in some sort of excitement. Eww! Mid way through the fest, water is sprayed from the terraces so we can all wash up, as the tomato dries up on our skin, latching itself to all parts of our body. And then we trudge through the river all the way back to the front gate where we have our buses waiting for us. There is hardly any food except for beef burgers along the way and everyone has to pee amidst a grassy area hidden in the backdrop.
You will eventually be relieved to get home that day and it’ll take you about a week to get all the tomato stubs out of your hair. Overall, not the best experience but movies like ‘Zindagi Naa Milegi Doobara’ make it look like an event of a lifetime. I suggest you if you really want to do this, think twice. A nice alternative would be to gang up at home and make some good ol’ tomato soup together or if you really want to do more with tomatoes, have a tomato juggling contest at home. c’est la vie. The End.
