Well we left Granada at 10 pm with one thought in our minds, La Tomatina! For those of you that don't know what this is well listen up cause this is with out a doubt the strangest, wildest, craziest experience I have ever come across. We left Granada about 10 to take a night train to Valencia Spain. Our trip started out excellent due to the great company that we found our self with in our sleeping compartment meeting a really cool British guy in his late 20's who like us had done lots of traveling in his lifetime and was also on his was to La Tomatina. After swapping stories he invited us for a beer in the bar on the train on him due to our lack of budget at this time! Wow pretty cool for him to just do this, guess I'll have to do the same when I meet fellow greenhorn travelers in the feature. After a cold beer we all returned to the cabin and spent the of the night trying to sleep in our small train beds.

We pulled into the train station early the next morning around 5 am. We got off and then spent the next hour trying to navigate our way to another station in the city, drop off our bags in lockers, take the metro to vet another station, and then finally catch our final train to the small city of Bunol, a 40 minute train ride from Valencia. Sounds easy right! hahaha, upon arriving at the final train station we realized how intense and crowded that this experience was going to be due to the massive line of sober,semi intoxicated, and really drunk people all trying to get on the train. Ended up meeting a pair of pretty cool Canadian girls in the line behind us that were also going to the festival. We chatted the whole train ride and once we arrived they decide to come with us to the tomato fight.

We arrived around 9 and made our was down through the city we mingled our way through the crowds selling liters of beer sangria and various foods. Eventually we got down to the main street and then started to get packed in like sardines into the giant crowd that filled every inch of the streets. Now to begin the festival someone had to be able to climb up a 30 or so foot greased pole and cut down a ham, I know random right but so is this whole festival. As we all waited for this task to be accomplished people began to grow more and more antsy as well as more and more drunk. This of course caused people to get crazy and out of hand as a large group of Spanish guys would rip off any guys t shirt that walked by and throw it around. Finally after about a hour of standing around throwing random shirts soaked in sangria and water about, someone finally managedto climb up and cut the ham from the pole. At that moment a large cannon was shot and then all went crazy as we all waited for the massive amounts of tomatoes that we were all expecting to arrive. Slowly thetomatoes started falling from the building that we were ticked in between, but then there it was as we saw the first Giant semi garbage truck slowing rolling down the streets. Everyone went crazy as it approached and the suddenly as we were all pushed to the sides they released a massive dump of tomatoes as people in the truck threw large quantities of tomatoes over the sides. Within a instant the scene transformed into an absolute world of chaos as the would of color that we were originally ion turned bright red as tomatoes were flying in every direction hitting anything in sight. For an hour this madness continued as we would grab the smashed tomato sauce and remnant tomatoes in every direction. Order meant nothing and rules would have been fantasy, as this represented more of total anarchy with food. After a solid hour of smashing each other withtomatoes another cannon was fired calling a cease fire. Yet here is when the real anarchy began as everyone filled with tomatoes and adrenalin made a mad push for the exit and a chance to get the massive amounts of red remnants off of them. Everyone was covered head to toe in this thick slimy goo as we all ran about the streets trying to find locals that would wash us off before we could board the train. Jay and I lost the girls we were with in the mad jostle to get out, but eventually caught back up with them at the train station. We spent the next hour pulling tomato from our hair, legs, ears, anywhere and tomato might find a spot.

We were able to catch our of the first train back, this time with a seat, able to relax after what seemed like hours of vegetable warfare. Got back to the train station and cleaned our selves up as well as we could before we boarded another train to take us to Barcelona, where we would catch yet another night train to take us up to Paris for the last leg of this amazing trip. I can say with out a question in my mind that this was worth all the money we paid in getting around and the 3 euros for the goggles in the fight. Who ever would have thought that throwing 90,000 lbs of tomatoes at each other would be so much fun! Oh wait....I did!