40,000 hot, sweaty people all squashed together with 100 tonnes of smelly tomatoes. Sounds like fun yeah? Hmmmm, is was and it wasn't!

A long and tiring day started with an early rise at 5:30. We had to get ourselves to the train station for the first train to Bunol at 7am. They crammed us all onto the train, just a sample of what was yet to come, and we were on our way. I felt sorry for the old man who, on his normal morning commute, had to endure this crush. Looking around it was clear that some of the other travellers, having done the traditional pub crawl the night before, were suffering more than us!

We exited the train station and started the trek down towards the centre of town. There were no signs directing the crowds but the lines of food stalls, makeshift bars and merchandise touts made it easy to find your way through this small country town. It's awesome the way this festival has remained unregulated. It seemed anyone with a trestle table or BBQ could set up a stand. The funniest one we saw, was two blokes who had gone down to the supermarket, bought a couple of bottles of Sangria and some plastic cups, filled two buckets with ice to keep them cool and Voila! Sangria stand! It was so good to see they hadn't cottoned on to festival prices yet either! You would think the people of Bunol would hate this festival, thousands of tourists rolling into town disturbing the peace on a Wednesday morning, but they seem to love it.

At the bottom of the hill we rounded a corner into the main street. The last of the shops were busy boarding up their windows and doors and covering the facades of the buildings with plastic sheets. We made our way down the street, passing some crazy sights of men in floral bathers and flamenco dresses and a girl in a wedding dress, before settling on a spot where we could see the greasy ham pole. The pole, covered in thick lard, was erected with the ham leg tied to the top. For the next hour and a half, we watched as one after another the monkeys went up crawling over the top of each other, reveling momentarily in the crowds cheers before sliding back down. It was starting to look hopeless until one particularly good climber kept getting higher and higher, wiping off the lard as he went with T-shirts being thrown to him from the crowd. Finally he got to the top and cut the ham loose. The next we saw of him he was crowd surfing past us, with his ham under his wing, to the end of the street where, I overheard later on the train, he was interviewed.

The wait was starting to drag on now nearly 2 hours standing, the crowd slowly getting bigger and space slowly reducing. We were offered some "so called" relief from the heat by the high pressured water hoses being sprayed straight into our faces and ears!

Finally, the siren sounded and minutes later we sighted the first truck coming slowly down the hill parting the crowds. As it approached us you would not believe the crush we endured as everyone crammed to the sides of the streets trying to avoid becoming the first things squished on the road. Being pelted with tomatoes by the people on top of the truck and trying to stop my ribs being crushed by the crowds around me was not the most pleasant experience I've ever had and to make it worse there were still two more trucks to come!

GAME ON!
For the next hour there were no rules! We grabbed tomatoes from wherever we could, squished them in our hands and pelted them at some unsuspecting target before copping them in return. All the while trying to keep our feet and not get crushed by the wave of people. This started to get very crazy very quickly and there was no way out! The situation got pretty scary at one point, a guy went down in the crowd and as those around him tried to pull him up to avoid being trampled, the masses behind, unaware, kept surging forward. I pushed my way to a staircase to the side to seek refuge from this madness. From there I watched as Jarrod was being swept further down the street in the river of people.

Finally, the siren sounded signaling a cease fire. I followed the crowds down the street, trudging through T-shirts, sunglasses and everything else that didn't survive the onslaught, amazingly and thankfully no people were among these. Passing people as they recalled their war stories to friends, some who unfortunately were pick-pocketed, I slowly made my way back up the hill to the train station only stopping to get hosed off by one of the friendly locals. We had read earlier on the Internet that they won't let you back on the train if you're too dirty or if you don't have a shirt! I'm not sure on the rules for the girls who were left in just their underwear! We saw two girls who had fashioned sports bras out of duct tape! I only hope they covered their nipples with something first! Ouch!!!!

After what seemed like forever hiking up the hill, I made it to the train station and to Jarrod waiting anxiously at the gate. A very happy reunion indeed! The train ride back to Valencia had an interesting aroma of rotten tomatoes, BO and a hint of wet dog!

After a long day we headed back to the hotel for a much needed shower and a rest before heading to the port for Paella.

Aaaahh La Tomatina...
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do it again, but I'm glad I can say I did it!