Erstellt am: 4. 9. 2010 - 12:38 Uhr
Tomatina: The World's Biggest Tomato Fight
Some notes: one should not bring anything to the Tomatina Fiesta which you are not prepared to lose, or if you do, it must be absolutely protected.
I say this because my friend and I went there with a digital camera, and left with a worthless piece of plastic and metal. Fortunately other veterans were smarter with their hardware and managed to smuggle out some pictures.
Juanjo Valverde, 2009
The annual Tomatina food fight festival, which takes place every year in Buñol, just west of Valencia in Spain, has been going on for well and over 65 years now, and markets itself as "the world's biggest tomato fight".
To be fair, it probably does not have very many competitors for the title.
According to the official website, Tomatina started as an actual spontaneous fight involving tomatoes in August 1945. The next year people decided to commemorate the anniversary, and a tradition was born.
For the first twelve years of its existence, the festival was unofficial and had an uncomfortable relationship with city hall and the local government; but as of 1957, the local government appears to have realized the benefit for tourism, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Flydime, 2010
When my friend and I first arrived just after eight in the morning that Wednesday (the festival lasts roughly one hour around midday, each year on the final Wednesday of August), the scene was absolutely nothing like these pictures. There was a strong feeling of apprehension in the air, and the whole town seemed to be holding its breath. Some locals seemed less than enthusiastic, but most appeared jovial enough.
Food and drinks were absolutely cheap: we started our morning with a couple very strong sangrias. We had to stop at that; any more and we would have slept through the festival.
Johnny's Tips for Survival
Flydime, 2010
One thing you will see in many photos are people wearing goggles.
Being a person who wears contact lenses, I thought some goggles would be of benefit to me, but it appears they only make you more of a target for everyone else, and furthermore prevent you from seeing anything. And then you get tomato in your eyes anyway.
I don't recommend wearing goggles.
Also: don't wear clothes you ever want to see again, but I guess that one's sort of obvious. Supposedly if you're wearing a shirt it will get torn off, but I was in the thick of things for the entire fight and my t-shirt was fine. Just, you know, red.
Flydime, 2010
After the fight was over, and we discovered our camera's unfortunate plight, then and only then did we invest in a waterproof disposable camera.
There are ways to keep professional cameras safe, but clearly I wasn't practicing any of them, so I'm in no position to give tips on the subject.
However, here's a helpful article.
The public transportation situation afterwards is a joke, and nearly ruined the festival for us. It was in the hottest part of the day, and the lines to get into the train station were simply not moving. I don't say they were moving slow. They were not moving at all, for ages. I still have no explanation for this unnecessary hour standing unsheltered in the blazing sun.
If you have the option, take a car. Seriously, getting hosed down in Buñol is no problem at all, you can get clean enough for the car. If you don't take this advice, remember as you stand in this stupid line, that I warned you.
Flydime, 2010
The Early Bird Gets Smashed With Tomatoes
The festival itself is a blast, a jovial battle between strangers, a messy fiesta of epic proportions. Nothing is more tragic than being one of the many tourists I met afterwards, just arriving with disappointed expressions on their faces as we emerged from the battlefield covered in tomato sludge.
We'd left Valencia for Buñol already at just past seven in the morning, and that train was a sardine can. I can only imagine the travel situation later.
FYI: Accommodation is notoriously difficult to find in Buñol, at least during that week it is. If you want to stay in Buñol proper during the festival next year, you should probably literally book now.
Flydime, 2010
According to the interwebs, about 150,000 tomatoes (or 100 tons) are sacrificed every year to make this event possible. I did not personally count them, but I can attest that it is indeed a lot of tomatoes.
The whole thing is a bit bizarre, with the festival only starting after some ham has been rescued from the top of a greasy pole. People fight each other to somehow get to the top and rescue this ham.
We weren't near the ham, however, so we didn't get to see that particular spectacle. We were further on, down a long narrow street, awaiting the tomato-bearing trucks with tens of thousands of other revellers.
Right around 11 am, the summer heat starts to become very hard to ignore (on the day we arrived in Valencia, it was a whopping 40 degrees celsius!), so while we were waiting, we were all very happy when locals would emerge on balconies above us and hurl buckets of cold water down at us.
But then finally the first truck appeared around a twist in the road, and suddenly you could see the pandemonium approaching, tomatoes getting whipped back and forth rapidly, and you knew this is it.
The abruptness with which this previously calm scene erupted into chaos reminded me a bit of watching a particularly violent storm roll in.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Flydime, 2010
Flydime, 2010
Flydime, 2010
I chose to pick on this Australian guy who was wearing a Brazil shirt. I lobbed a successive six or seven crushed tomatoes at his head before he detected me. After that it was all-out war.
Flydime, 2010
What else can I say about this festival? For some reason, it attracts more Australians than anything else; there may have even been more Australians than Spanish, but then, probably not.
By the way, I recommend very strongly that you wash whatever clothes you do not throw away... immediately. Twice, and give it a lot of space to dry. Moldy tomato clothes are not something I want to smell again.
Oh, and my friend and I both got really sick pretty much immediately afterwards. Unsurprisingly there are a lot of germs flying around with those tomatoes. I recommend giving yourself some days off after the festival, and taking lots of vitamin C.
Johnny Bliss, 2010
Johnny Bliss, 2010
On a closing note, some people have ethical concerns about the wastefulness of Tomatina in a world where there are starving children. As a person with a conscience, I would like to take a moment to address that.
Fact: in the First World, we selfishly waste the resources of the rest of the world without so much as a second thought. How much food is getting wasted in Europe today alone?
Put into perspective, it's already unsustainable that we live so comfortably and abundantly in the First World. There is a LOT that is wrong and irrational. Tomatina is a flamboyant and easy target, sure, but there are much more worthwhile targets, if we're going to be honest here.
For example, your nose. With this tomato.