Advertisement
Published: October 5th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Another night of luxury accommodation in the airport in morocco, the floor was so sore!!! I pulled out all my belongings to lay on but nothing cushioned us. At about 1am the airport decided they were going to close, so we headed outside and found a nice patch of grass to sleep on, taking rotations on who was on lookout 😊
We arrived into Madrid after our flight to the clapping of europeans- who all clap when the plane lands. Of course we decided to join in! But such a strange custom- almost like they didn't expect us to land. We were catching a bus from madrid to seville, so had a picnic in the park at the madrid bus station with the homeless all of us sitting on cardboard.
Alice was still really sick and almost was sick on the bus, trying to urgently find a bag or something when we spotted the nuns hat she was sitting next to, would have been the perfect solution 😊 Thankfully she slept and we survived to arrive in Valencia.
So excited to see Lara (after 6 months of not seeing her) met her at the apartment- longest hug in
the world! Then it all felt normal having her there and she had an awesome time in Barcelona. We had a nice apartment- complete with washing machine and kitchen! Cooked the most amazing pasta- after not eating for 4 days this was extra good. Watched movies and introduced Lara to principe biscuits yum!
Lena's friend Chris was in Valencia as well and he came back and met us at the apartment, trying to convince us to go to bunol (the town where la tomatina was) to the night before party!
It worked and we ended up in Bunol. The town was thriving with all the locals bringing their tables into the street, drinking and dancing everywhere + a big range of costumes. We danced to all the spanish music and had an awesome time! Then Lara started to feel sick and we headed out to get some fresh air and try to find lena and chris. They had hidden our bags with sleeping bags/ blankets etc as we planned to catch a few hours of sleep in a park somewhere before la Tomatina! The were no where to be seen so Matt stole a table cloth and we
used this as a blanket and found a room to sleep in. It was so cold and people would walk past and shout trying to wake us up and even taking photos! Needless to say we were not happy in the morning with lena and chris.
We found them in the morning changed our clothes and got ready for the fight. From 7am the town was thriving full of young revelers ready for the worlds biggest tomato fight! We claimed our spot 3 hours or so before it started and luckily we did this it was impossible to move through the crowd - i have never seen so many people in one street before!
Water guns began to blast us- so we chucked on our goggles ready to go. The tradition before la Tomatina starts is that someone has to climb up a pole slathered in lard and knock a leg of ham of the top- this commences the fight. The crowd all got behind the latest climber all shouting encouragement as bit by bit they slipped back down the pole. 2 hours later there was success and the champion was surfed through the crowd!
The crowd
was crazy and guys were running around ripping everybodys clothes off and throwing them through the crowd- i had a lucky escape!!!! Finnaly the trucks started coming through the street, pressing the crowd into the walls- i didn't think it was possible to fit a truck in the street. We were exfoliated by the back hair of the plump middle aged guys in front of us...! Finnaly the trucks make their way through and then the craziness began.
Tomatoes came flting at all angles but because of the huge mass of people the majority of them didnt even make it to the ground, they got wedged inbetween bodies. I tried to bend down to pick up tomatoes and was nearly trampled.... im suprised no one was serioulsy hurt! Tomatoes rocketed through the air for an hour, then all was done! Everyone tried to escape and we stopped to have a look at the aftermath- an absolute war zone!!! But i think the locals enjoyed it, they all bought buckets of water and threw them off their decks to the red croud- and slowly we began to resume our normal colour!
Train ride back everyone was absolutely wasted after
the days events and we slept right through.
Tapas and dinner at the beach folllowed, the water was so warm! Everyone had said oh the mederterannean sea, so lovely.. this was my first warm water i had my whole 5 months in Spain!
I said goodbye to my travel companions from the last month and Lara and I headed off for an adventure of our own 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.218s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0387s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb