Buñol is a rather small city about 100-square-km with a population of only 9,000 people. However 20,000-40,000 tourists flood the city every year for this one day festival.

This festival was one of my last days of my four month Europe trip, and I probably would have headed home a few weeks earlier (as by the last month of my trip I had used up all my savings and was pretty much running off my line of credit, going deeper and deeper into debt) if it wasn’t for this festival. But nope, I had my heart set on participating in the worlds biggest tomato fight so I stuck it out and made my way to Buñol.

Before Buñol I had just spent 5 days in Ibiza (a small party Island off the coast of Spain). From Ibiza I took a ferry to Valencia, and from Valencia I took a bus (although you can also take a train) to Buñol the day before the event. Once there I met up with an Australian girl I had met earlier in the summer in Serbia.

Again this town is small, really small, and like I said 20-40 thousand tourists come for this event every year, so as you can imagine there was no where to stay. So as many others did we simply slept in the park. Many people stay in Valencia and take a train/bus to Buñol the day of but I wanted to beat the rush.

In preparation for the event, the day/night before all the buildings in the immediate area drape massive plastic sheets over the fronts in order to keep the messy tomatoes off the buildings.

A local church had a bag check for people like me that decided to rough it out and sleep in the park, so that bags didn’t get stolen. Anyways we woke up the next morning bright and early and prepared our selves for the worlds biggest tomato fight. For me this meant drawing a big bulls-eye on my back (yeah kind of a stupid idea but hey) and drinking three-liters of beer (yes at 9 a.m.).  I will explain why this was a big mistake later, and it’s not for obvious reasons.

Anyways we headed to the main street and found a spot we thought would be good. By the time 10a.m. rolled around the street was so packed you literally couldn’t move. Im not talking about packed like a crowded nightclub packed, like Cheval on a long weekend Sunday packed, Im talking about sardines in a can packed. Now remember when I said the 3-litres of beer would come back to haunt me? This is when. So as you can imagine, after drinking 3-liters of beer, one might have to urinate. When you’re at a bar this is an easily achievable task. However when you are packed in the middle of a street with 30,000 people around you and no where to move this is a problem. Needless to say, after 3-liters of beer I was sloshed enough to pull it out and aim for the sewer grate. (note that people around you will probably not take kindly to this sort of behavior, and I don't recommend anyone try it unless it is an extreme emergency).

Something else to note, don’t wear anything you care about to this event;

1.Because there is a 80% chance it will be ripped off by the crowd (yes it is a tradition for groups of guys to rip off any, and every persons shirt that comes near them, including girls. So be on the watch for these groups).
(This is one of those groups. The guy in the middle is having his shirt ripped off by everyone. if this happens to you dont bother struggling, just let them take it.) 

2. Because you are going to be pelted with tomatoes for the next hour or so and trust me the smell and color will never come out of your clothes, shoes, flip flops, etc. no matter how many times you wash them. I think I smelt like tomato for a good week after this event even after many showers.

 Anyways the tradition is that someone has to climb to the top of this flagpole that has been greased up, and grab the ham off the top of it, while people with fire hoses spray water at them. Once someone is able to release the ham from the pole, a bunch of huge trucks filled with you guessed it, tomatoes, slowly start to creep down the street. On each truck is about ten volunteers that start throwing out the tomatoes. Every so often the trucks stop and dump their loads along the way.

The night before and on the day of, there are tons of organizers handing out pamphlets with information and rules on them. The rules are fairly simple, although from experience a lot of people do not follow them. The rules are as follows;

1. It is illegal to bring any kind of bottles or other objects that could cause an accident. (They set up road blocks at both ends of the street and search everyone for such objects so no bottles make it onto the course).

2. You must not tear t-shirts. (Yeah I don’t think people follow this rule, there was tons of shirt tearing).

3. Tomatoes must be crushed before throwing so that they don't hurt anybody. (Most people followed this rule, but there were quite a few uncrushed tomatoes flying around, and trust me these hurt).

4. You must be careful to avoid the lorries (trucks), which carry the tomatoes. (This kind of goes with out saying, I mean who wants to get run over by a dump truck?)

5. As soon as you hear the 2nd banger you must stop throwing tomatoes. (Most people respected this rule.

From here on the best way I can describe this is a red blur of mayhem. Tomatoes are flying everywhere, and every second that goes on people become more drenched in tomatoes and the ground slowly builds up layer after layer of tomato mush. 

After exactly one hour of mayhem the second banger rings and all tomato throwing stops. Everyone slowly disperses, and that’s that.  As you leave you notice the streets are flooded with tomato muck up to your shins. The town has some public showers set up around to help wash off.  Most people leave the city directly after this event, like literally half an hour after the event. As you can imagine the towns train station is tiny. So you do the math, 40,000 people and a tiny train station and trains leaving every 20 – 30 minutes. Not a fun senario to be in, but with a little..ok a lot of patience and a little pushing, you will be out of there before you know it.

My final thoughts, this festival was amazing, a must do/must see. I skimped out a bit on describing the actual tomato fight, because its really one of those things you just have to be there to fully understand and grasp. I hope my description and pictures help give you an idea of this festival and encourage you to go. It’s silly, its fun, its something truly unique, and I highly recommend making your way to Buñol, Spain for the last Wednesday in August.

 

Aaron

“Getting down to business, so you can get to the business of getting down”

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