La Tomatina

Every year in late August, the small town of Buñol, Spain, home to roughly 9,000 residents, swells to close to 50K people to celebrate the tomato festival, La Tomatina. What started in 1945 as one small kid’s temper tantrum (he fell off of a parade float, got angry, and started throwing tomatoes from a nearby produce stand) has turned into what is considered the biggest annual food fight and the worst ketchup-making process in history.

The event is traditionally held on the last Wednesday in August and brings revelers from all corners of the world. Of course there’s alcohol flowing freely, and where there’s booze, there are Americans, Brits, and Aussies. But this event also brings out a sizable contingent from Japan (in tomato-themed kimonos) and from India, as well as probably every other country that has the internet and the disposable income to fly to a foreign country just to throw tomatoes at people.

The event started at 11:00 AM, but we were advised by the hotel to get there at least an hour before, which we did. Upon arrival, we went through four separate checkpoints to get to the street that would be the heart of the tomato fight. Every checkpoint checked to ensure that you had your official La Tomatina wristband on (only 25€ for admission), but only one checkpoint checked inside bags or asked about what was in your pockets. I can only assume that they have a history of people bringing their own tomatoes that weren’t properly sanctioned for the event.

The event was crowded in a way that I haven’t experienced before. At times, we were packed in so tightly that I had trouble breathing. Karen said that she wasn’t as much standing as she was just being pinned into a vertical position by the pressure of bodies from all sides. And with that many bodies from that many countries pressed that closely on a warm summer day, well, you can imagine the smell. I would have paid a king’s ransom for a bottle of Febreeze. Add to the fact that people had been drinking for hours and couldn’t be bothered to leave their established spot to find a port-a-potty, and that added a new smell to the mix that wasn’t surprising but was wholly unwelcome.

Shortly after 11:00 AM, right after the starting firework exploded overhead, we found ourselves being pushed out of the streets and onto the sidewalk to make room for an incoming truck. This was a construction site dump truck, nearly the length of a tractor trailer, open on top, full of tomatoes, and topped with a dozen La Tomatina volunteers who gleefully threw handfuls of tomatoes at the unarmed crowd. I mean unarmed both literally and figuratively; we had no tomatoes to throw back and we were packed in so tightly that we couldn’t move our arms. But when the truck started to tilt and dump its payload on the street, that’s when things got interesting. There still wasn’t enough space to throw a tomato properly, but you could squat down, grab a few tomatoes from around your feet (some intact, some not), stand up, and throw to the best of your ability. Considerate people would tear their whole tomatoes in half before throwing, so they didn’t hit as hard. (Plus they had the advantage of now having two pieces of ammo for a single tomato). It was a lot of fun looking someone in the eyes and throwing a tomato at them, knowing they barely had room to dodge. Fortunately, tomato halves aren’t terribly aerodynamic, so you were more likely to miss than to hit, but it was still worth a throw and a laugh from both parties.

In all, four trucks came through, dropping hundreds of pounds of tomatoes per trip, over 150 tons in total. With each trip, the streets got slicker and deeper with tomato mush. Fortunately, there was a guy with a fire hose spraying the crowd to keep everyone cool, but it also thinned out the tomato juices to make it easier to find chunks worth throwing. Sunglasses were a minimum level of required eye protection, some people were wearing swimming goggles and I even saw a few scuba masks.

Then, an hour after it began, the “it’s over” firework went off. A few final tomatoes were thrown, and the crowd started to mill off the streets towards the exit. There was plenty of laughing and joking, some people scrolling through the pictures on their phones, some people complaining about “tomato acid” in their eyes. As we headed out of the area, there were several enterprising residents who were charging 2€ to hose the tomato juices off of participants. Karen and I returned to the hotel to clean up (after being hosed down outside by the manager), showered and threw on some clean clothes. Despite taking a proper shower, my white hotel towel still ended up pinkish orange with tomato juice. Within three hours, the town had returned to its normal sleepy self, with La Tomatina cleanup crews already having passed through the streets with hoses, washing residue into the gutters. The vast majority of the revelers had boarded trains back to Valencia or wherever they were staying, leaving the streets quiet. There was still enough tomato peel on the streets to let you know that something interesting had happened, but nothing to indicate the magnitude of the festival. The town of Buñol had effectively gone back to sleep for another year.

** Due to an unfortunate incident with a pickpocket and an iPhone, we have no photos of our involvement with the event. All of the photos you see in the article were shamelessly stolen from the internet.