La Tomatina 2006

It all goes down when The Ham hits the ground!

We arrived in Bunol before sunrise on Wednesday morning with our newfound friends. As we entered the city, even at this early hour you could tell the place was ready to blow up. People had slept/were sleeping in the town squares, beer gardens were being set up, sangria was being chilled and the locals were giving us the "you guys are idiots" eye.

After milling around through the town we made it to the center of the action around 10 A.M. The fight takes place along one street and about 35 to 40 thousand people crowd the street. All of the action begins around a 30 foot wooden pole that is covered in a thick coating of lard. At the top of the pole is a Ham Leg that is tied securely. As is tradition, the tomato fight won't begin until someone has climbed all the way up the pole and cut the Ham Leg down.

As the crowd grows bigger and bigger, people begin to converge upon the Ham Pole. Whomever cuts the Ham down from the greased pole becomes an instant hero. It takes all morning for people to keep climbing and climbing, each time taking a little more of the lard off the pole. In the meantime, the crowd begins to grow restless and evermore drunk. Traditional chants begin and the crowd grows into a fever pitch each time someone reaches new heights on the pole. It's a hilarious sight to see grown men climbing over each other and pulling each other down in attempts to be the hero of the festival. One girl made it really far up and just when she was about to reach the Ham, some guy had climbed up and grabbed her ankle to bring her down and dash her hopes of being the heroine. The crowd didn't like that and he was booed unmercifully. So this dance continues for the better part of the morning until finally there is a victor.

Once the Ham drops, a cannon sounds and the crowd goes berserk. The first thing that happens is that firehoses drench the crowd from every corner and direction. There is no escape. Then four dump trucks rumble down the street and part the crowd. Inside the dump trucks there are people who are throwing tomatoes at the crowd and then the truck dumps much of its load onto the streets. Then its basically kill or be killed; for an hour we were trying to avoid getting blasted by tomatoes and the water cannons. Though its impossible to do either. Sounds like fun, right?

After an hour, another cannon blast marks the end of La Tomatina. Everyone, looking dazed and confused starts to wander towards the community showers or in search of their lost flip flop. What was once the smell of a delicious tomato becomes the sunbaked stench of rotten tomato, stale beer and human stench. Most people are completely covered with tomato pulp and white shirts have become pink.

We met up with our international team of tomato throwers (which we had lost in the madness) and made our way towards the train station. Most people stay and party through out the day but we were exhausted and decided to get the hell out of dodge. The train ride was awful, the acrid stench of tomatoes was everywhere, our clothes were still sopping wet but the tomato on our skin had dried nicely.

Once we made it back to the hotel, we showered up and took an excellent siesta. We were exhausted but exhilirated and the team made plans to go out for a night on the town, which ended at exactly 24 hours from the time we caught our cab into Bunol to start the day (6 A.M.).

We had a great time and would gladly do it again with any of our friends or family who might be interested in a wild and crazy event like this.

We also bought a disposable camera but it got completely drenched so we're not exactly sure how those pics will turn out but if they do, we'll definitely add them to the page.