La Tomatina

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I cannot put La Tomatina into words. It was the absolute wildest thing I have ever been involved in. Bunol is this extremely small town where about 40,000 people are crammed into for the festival. In the center of town there is a ham atop a wooden pole that is covered in lard. When someone removes the ham, the festival officially begins. Sara and I got there about two hours early so we were in the dead center right by the ham. After about two hours one guy finally got the ham down and then the alley and everyone was soaked by these massive waterhoses. Soon the dumptruck came. I still don't know how this dumptruck made it down this alley that was completely packed, but somehow it managed bringing all the tomatoes with it. Once it was in the center, which was right by us, it opened the rear and tomatoes gushed out. Then all hell broke loose and everyone went crazy. Sara and I grabbed ahold of a tree at this point and just held on for dear life for the next hour. The truck made three more passes dumping more and more tomatoes in and the crowd just got crazier and crazier and we held onto our tree tighter and tighter. If you looked into the sky, it was nothing but a red blur. You couldn't look long either because you'd get hit by a tomato in the face. By the end, the ally was about 4 inches deep in tomato paste and we were completely covered. Our hair was completely soaked with little tomato chunks in it and Sara's once white tank top was now red. The pictures below really do not do it justice.

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