Tomatina and Spain

After my last few days in Italy drinking sangria and partying all night I needed a bit of a rest, so I headed to Spain for la Tomatina. Who’d have known that would be a bad idea? Tomatina was one of the top events on my ‘while I’m young and stupid’ bucket list. As far as I could gather it’s a festival that Spain throw so the vegans can get in on all the fiesta fun, since all their other festivals seem to revolve around bull’s being tortured. It’s held every year in Bunol, which is just inland from Valencia. I’d once again chosen to go with a tour group for this festival, as La Tomatina only last an hour, and I figured it best to leave the organising to someone else, lest I miss the carnage. I also chose my particular tour as they had also had access to a wine and water festival which was held nearby the night before Tomatina.

One perk of booking through a tour company was that I was now staying in a hotel room for a couple of nights. To be honest it just felt like a waste, as I was going to be sleeping a bare minimum each of those nights, and luxury for me is now a mattress that isn’t too wet, that I don’t have to share with more than one person. Anything more than that just feels like opulence. I had a room mate for the trip, and I lucked out with a very cool lad from Australia called Ben. Ben has now travelled to every continent bar Antarctica, where he’ll be finishing his current trip.....the lucky bastard. While we shared a similar method of lifestyle which involved work, quit, travel, repeat, we had quite different methods of how we do our travel. Ben is an absolute tour fiend, he’s mad for them. Personally, I can’t stand them, I feel like I’m back in school again, and I don’t tend to do well with guidelines and structure. But Ben was absolutely loving it, and it was actually kind of refreshing to see that even in the Aussie gypsy population there’s still a tonne of diversity.

We technically had a few hours on the first day in Valencia to have a look around, but I spent most of it passed out in my dry, evenly padded, bed with sheets (OPULENCE I SAY!!) recovering from Florence and the 7am flight that morning, and then drinking a few bottles of wine and red bull with Ben. The wine and water festival was awesome, and for me provided a bit of closure. Like any good Spanish festival the wine and water festival had its’ own dose of danger. I’m pretty sure there’s a rule here that means it’s only officially a fiesta if an Australian is guaranteed to get hurt. In the case of the wine and water festival, they obviously submitted to the Spanish festival board their proposal to dish out free wine to anyone who had brought a vessel, from massive tanks on the back of trucks, and then pour water on the drunken revellers from the windows above. Obviously the Spanish festival board weren’t willing to leave Australian casualties to the chancey ills of drunken hypothermia, and so suggested ‘Why don’t you add a bull?’. And so, after being shut out of the stadium at the end of the Running of the Bulls, I finally had my chance to get into an arena while nimble young bulls tried to kill me. I’ve never been so happy!

I actually wasn’t 100% sure I’d get in stadium with the bulls, but by the time I got to the stadium I had had enough wine that I was in ‘the zone’. Not the zone where you’re invincible and really good at pool and can write English essays for University; the zone where you THINK you’re invincible, try to play jump shots in pool, and can write really innapropriate comments on facebook. Luckily the adrenaline that kicked in once I jumped into the arena and the first bull came out took me back to the first zone and I was all good. It was easily one of the most fun experiences of my life. There were 6 bulls in total, released one at a time. There was actually a cage in the middle of the arena, but I didn’t use that. Not because of any type of bravado, just because it was packed full of Aussies who’d had the courage to jump the fence, but nothing past that point. I ended up spending my time in the ring with an awesome Aussie girl and a couple of English lads who’d actually sworn they wouldn’t go in the arena at any price, and then turned up there after the first bull with the most intense look of excited terror I’ve ever seen. The best part of it was we were sitting and partying in the stands with a bunch of locals before we jumped into the ring, who then became our unofficial cheerleading section and gave us thumbs ups every time we almost died.

The beauty of the smaller bulls is that they probably wont kill you if they hit you, but they are far more agile than their older counterparts and so can turn on a dime and really mess some people up who aren’t expecting it. The decreased chance of death also enables the locals to run up and do flips over the charging bulls which is pretty amazing. Another hilarious but crazy thing that people do is lay on the ground in front of the bulls’ entrance to the arena. The theory is that the bulls don’t want to tread on anything it’s not expecting, and usually the bull will leap gracefully over everyone and they all stand, hug, and continue life with functioning internal organs. But this falls apart in a couple of ways. Firstly, after this works the first time, everyone wants a go, and so you have a scenario where the line begins to reach ridiculous lengths, with grinning locals encouraging suddenly nervous looking Aussies to lay down further and further from the gate, all the time assuring them that they’ll be fine. Secondly, not all the bulls jump. Luckily no one was hurt too badly that night. Actually the only major injury of the night happened about 5 metres away from me, when a girl got upended by a bull and got knocked out. Luckily there was a pretty big crew of us to carry her out and a couple of Spaniards with grande cajones to distract the bull for a minute.

I ended up completely knackered  after sprinting around for the better part of two hours, and I’ve got to say a special thanks to my tennis coach Michael for all the footwork exercises he made me do when I was younger, because I’m pretty sure it saved me on a couple of occasions (I actually promised myself to mention that after taking a deft step that made the bull upend a guy a metre away from me and only brush past me). My only regret about the whole experience was that I ended up losing my camera a couple of days later and didn’t get a chance to back up my videos I took while dashing around the ring. The one I’m most gutted about losing was when I was with two other guys about ten metres away from the bull. The bull started snorting steam from its’ nose, and sliding its’ hoof through the dirt, (totally warner bros style) as we sat there doing the same with our feet while getting ready to flee. And then it charged us. The video I shot was the bull threatening us, then an image of it charging at us for a millisecond, followed by the camera flying around in panic like someone had placed it in a hamster wheel and kicked it, followed by a sudden close up of the ground as I tripped over a pothole it, and then a nice close up shot of the guy next to me, about 3 metres away, being gored at by the bull as he lay on the ground after also having fallen. Ah well. As I told my parents, it just means I’ll have to do it again so I can get the footage.

After this, all who had survived the carnage, as well as those in the stands, emptied out into the streets for a massive street parade, and to imbibe in the free wine. The next few hours were pure Spanish fiesta as we danced to marching bands, had water poured onto us, and drank homemade wine from our vessels (which ranged from water bottles to kids’ pottys shaped like dinosaurs). We then all reluctantly piled back on our buses (some time around 4am) and headed back to our hotel, except for some drunken idiots who got on the wrong bus and went to the hostel instead. But after getting a cab from the hostel to the hotel I got a good solid 2 hours of sleep.

The next morning was a tad groggy to say the least, but luckily we had a free buffet breakfast, which meant a few litres of coffee each, and we were ready for Tomatina. We must’ve easily been the most sober/hungover group at the festival that morning as everyone else had gone slightly easier the night before and had gotten nicely drunk by the time we arrived. La Tomatina really is bizarre. The town of Bunol is located right in the middle of a bunch of industrial areas, and the approach to the town centre where the tomatoes are actually thrown isn’t exactly scenic. However once you arrive in the town centre it’s much more like the scenic Spanish villa you would expect. On the day of the festival the entire route leading in is lined with makeshift bars and barbecues, and a few hundred vendors selling swimming goggles. Luckily I avoided the price gouge from these vendors as I had thought ahead and brought a pair of ye olde aviator goggles which I ended up wearing for about 2 minutes before they fogged up and I took them off.

The fight actually starts at midday, but people must pack in pretty early because by the time we got there around 10:30am it was already packed well into the outskirts of town. Moving through the crowd was almost impossible, and once you get close to the town square only the rudest and most selfish can make any headway by pushing through the crowd into perceived space that simply doesn’t exist. But some ingenious people find other methods to move closer to the centre:

Not at all rude, ignore those girls screaming when I kick them in the head...

Once everyone is packed in, there’s not really much to do, so the town of Bunol kindly supplies entertainment in the form of a greased up pole with a ham leg tied to the top of it. This definitely did the job (it’s the simple things in life) and although no one physically grabbed the ham, there were loud cheers for a guy who tried to scale the palm tree next to the pole and jump across (he didn’t luckily as he would’ve definitely died), for any time someone was able to get up high enough to clear off the next layer of grease, and whenever the ripped black guy who looked a bit like Usain Bolt got up the pole. There was actually a few times where the whole crowd was cheering ‘USAIN BOLT, USAIN BOLT’ and while this may sound a bit racist, in our defense: we were very drunk, he was quite a close physical resemblance, and after one particularly good effort he did stand on someone’s shoulders and do the archer pose. And everyone chanting assures me they totally have tonnes of black friends. When the ham was finally shaken down by the guys at the base everyone was naturally pretty excited

But after a long wait, the trucks with tomatoes started making their way through the crowd. I’m not 100% sure how they did this, as before they came you literally couldn’t move more than a centimetre in any direction, but I guess a couple of tonnes of truck driven by a slightly tipsy and vaguely inbred looking Spaniard was necessary motivation to facilitate a solution to that conundrum. Waiting for the truck to arrive was an amazing spectacle. If you’ve ever been by a body of water while watching a storm approach you’ll have some idea what it is like, as you watch as the truck slowly moves through the crowd leaving a wake of tomatoes flying through the sky behind it. Once the trucks did arrive it was carnage. You barely had any room so you just had to make quick dips down to grab a tomato or two, then stand up hurl them at someone, follow through with your arm into the girl standing next to you, apologise quickly then do it all over again. After a minute or two the ground is covered in about half a foot of pasta sauce and you’re just scooping up puree and slurping it onto those around you. And then the next truck comes through and you start it all again! In this next video this was the first truck, and you can see by the time I move in behind it that the ground is already soaked in tomato puree. You’ll also see me grab a tomato off a girl and squash it on her head..... hey, it’s a harsh world when tomato fights break out. I also say ’WOOH’ more than a sorority girl on her 21st birthday, but that’s just the kind of party it was, ok.

The best bits was when the trucks stopped and you had a fresh pile of tomatoes, and if you were lucky you were on one side of the truck in between the cab and the trailer, meaning you had no one in front of you for a few metres, a fresh arsenal of tomatoes, and your newest deeply sworn enemy who must be punished by tomatoes standing on the other side. The fight only  goes for an hour, and on one hand it goes in a flash, but you’re so knackered by the end, and completely out of anything solid to throw, that the last few minutes are mainly people dancing around and chanting ‘ole ole’ and seven nation army. I cannot overstate how drenched in tomato juice everyone is by this stage. I’ve had baths that left me drier than Tomatina. After this, everyone files out very very slowly and tries to find any available water source to clean themselves off. We then threw out most of our clothes we’d just worn and got into some fresh ones for the bus ride home, before having the longest and most thorough showers of our lives (which still didn’t get all the tomato out of our hair and ears).

After Tomatina, I stayed in Valencia for a few days. The hostel I was at was comprised entirely of Aussies who were in town for Tomatina, most of whom were only on short stays in Europe and were keen to keep the big nights rolling. Normally I wouldn’t have minded, but I had come down with tropical death plague after a combination of about 5 or 6 big nights in a row (I may have also headed out to a nightclub until 5am after Tomatina) and having tomatoes thrown at my face that had been on the ground, and mixed in with god knows what (ok, urine...lots of drunk people waiting for a long time in a packed street with no public toilets). Luckily my room was quite sedate and I found a fellow culture vulture from Australia called Stefan, who had also gone quite hard over Tomatina and was keen for some detox.

I spent my time in Valencia sleeping, eating vegetables, and cycling around the city. Valencia isn’t the most spectacular city, but it is definitely one of the most liveable cities I’ve ever been to. It has a park that snakes its’ way through the entire length of the city, which contains football fields, outdoor gym apparatuses, bike paths, running tracks and kids play areas. It’s also rife with plaza’s, beaches, bars, excellent street art, restaurants and a newly developed area on the foreshore where the architect for the Sydney Opera house has obviously made a few more dollars. There’s even an f1 track that you can ride your bike around making engine noises and commentating like Murray Walker. Unfortunately no stories worth telling ever start with a salad and an early night so I haven’t really got anything else to say about a city I could definitely see myself living in. Although the one funny thing that did happen was when Stefan and I happened upon some people setting up for a local fiesta, and decided to come back that night and check it out. Unfortunately when we returned it turned out to be a fair populated mainly by preteens and kids, and so rather than feel like creepy perverts we headed back to the hostel (there were still bars lining the festival, and I bet if we waited around they would’ve released a bull).

From Valencia I caught an overnight bus to Granada, a beautiful town at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain. The overnight bus was interesting for the fact that I managed to get an unbelievably good night sleep after somehow managing to origami myself so that I lay flat across two bus seats, something I’ve still not been able to replicate since, and for the fact that this brilliant slumber was interrupted at 6am when we had to change buses after our bus apparently quite spectacularly blew out a tire (the bang woke everyone bar me).

In Granada  I was meeting my friend Emily, who I met while couchsurfing in Belfast. Serendipitously we had both ended up in Granada at the same time. I was also meeting up with a couple of girls she was traveling with, who were friends of both Emily and my couchsurfing host in Edinburgh (small world). Granada is a very beautiful small city. It’s perched on the side of a hill, and features your standard historical European town features of tightly packed houses intertwined with winding cobble stoned lanes. From pretty much every vantage point you get an amazing view of the Islamic temple Allahambra which hovers on a hill over the city. If you hike up to the cathedral on top of the city wall you get a great view down to the town below, and when you walk back down you pass right through a bunch of caves and shelters where the local gypsy community lives. And to top it off, at the many bars in town you get free tapas with each drink, and on most nights can enjoy your cerveza while watching the local flamenco dancers. I spent most of my time in Granada wandering the streets, and just hanging out with the girls. 

To the left Allahambra, front and centre the UNESCO town, not pictured - the gypsies trying to scam tourists.

We spent one afternoon wandering around Allahambra, which was absolutely beautiful. It was nice to have a break from churches with Jesus everywhere and try a different flavour of religion. Muslim places of worship definitely have a different vibe to their Christian counterparts. While they certainly lose marks for lack of pictures of Jesus, they more than make up for this with intricate tiles coating almost every wall, good use of natural light, and most importantly water features. Most mosques I've visited in my time here have all felt more open and airy, and more welcoming and communal than the typically closed and grand Christian churches, but I think that probably has more to do with the fact that Christianity happened in Europe where money was plentiful but heat non existant, whereas Mosques were predominantly built where it was 45 degrees all day. I think their perogative was designing the building to have a breeze and not going too overboard on the construction before all the potential worshippers die of heat stroke. 

This much hand made detail was in every single wall and ceiling....mustn't have had much else to do in those days I guess.

Not the worst view in town.

Allahambra and its’ view across the city was breathtaking, but it should come as no surprise that my favourite places in the city were a couple of concentrations of street art. Granada is lucky enough to have the very talented El Nino as a resident, who is a world famous street artist. While talented, he is apparently quite lazy, and has decided to mainly only venture as far as his own street to exhibit his pieces. Luckily this has turned his neighbourhood into one big gallery. This is easily one of my favourite places in the entire world: surrounded by art, the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background, all in the midst of a UNESCO world heritage site. 

Love this one.

There’s also a staircase at one of the highest points of the city where the artists have decided to combine a bunch of great pieces, where again you have an amazing combination of a great view and an outdoor gallery. Unfortunately this location has also added in a strong smell of urine to its' features, so it loses a few points there.

From Granada, Emily and I said goodbye to her friends and headed to Seville. We only spent a couple of nights here as I was keen to get to Morocco as soon as possible, and she only had a few days left before she had to return to real life in NYC, so we only really experienced a little of what Seville had to offer. However it seemed to be another beautiful, laid back Spanish city. We spent a bit of time walking around and a lot of time drinking in tapas bars, and we even had a chance to meet up for dinner with Stefan from Valencia for a night of Mexican food and beer. I also checked out the largest wooden structure in the world, which sort of looks like one of those flat pack make your own dinosaur skeleton kits, but on a grander scale.

The first piece came free, that's how they get you.

I said my farewell to Emily and Seville and hit the road for the southern town of Algeciras. I was only in Algeciras as it was one of the towns you could catch a ferry to Morocco from. No one chooses to come to Algeciras. It’s a dirty, semi abandoned, poor imitation of a Spanish town, with all the laid back, tapas eating, festiveness replaced with a bunch of miserable seedy transients who seem eternally trapped in transit, and a cuisine that combines the worst aspects of Moroccan and Spanish food. After finding out that my hotel, and in fact the entire town, had no washing machines, I decided Algeciras had nothing there for me and got the first bus to nearby Gibraltar. I only had one afternoon in Gibraltar, but luckily that's all you need. Gibraltar is a small patch of land which the English must’ve won off Spain in a card game or something, as it’s only about 2km long. But it does have a quite strategically significant location overlooking the straight of Gibraltar, and a beautiful big rock/hill that on a clear day allows you to see both Spain and Morocco. It was a place I sort of felt obligated to visit as I had grown up on Mt Gibraltar in Bowral and I’m easily amused by trivialities.

I’m glad I ended up visiting it though. After being in Spain and Italy for the past month it was actually really nice to experience a bit of good old fashioned British politeness for a change. Every English person in Gibraltar seems keenly aware that they’re an ambassador for their country and so they all have outrageously British accents and are all exceedingly polite and merry. I was only really in Gibraltar for one reason though: to climb the Gib and have some hot chips like I used to in High School. 

Simple amusements for simple minds.

This was done with a minimum of fuss and I was then free to walk around looking at the amazing view and to watch the crazy Macaques (monkeys) terrorise the tourists. These little monkeys were just domesticated enough to allow people near them, but not controlled enough that they didn’t try to steal people’s bags/cameras/babies. They especially liked my bag which must’ve smelt of hot chips still, and I had a couple jump on my shoulders and try to get to the Burger King goodness within. Luckily my face wasn’t clawed off or anything so all in all a very successful day.

'Aww isn't he just ador....OH GOD MY FACE!!'

As you can see the weather was very similar to Bowral's Mt Gibraltar

And with that I returned to my hotel, and ended my second jaunt through Spain. The next day I would head to the first place to really make me a little nervous on this trip, but also one of the places I’d always wanted to visit: Morroco, and so bidding Algeciras goodbye (hopefully forever) I was off to Africa.