Once a year, the sleepy, Spanish town of Buñol becomes the front line to the largest food fight in the world. Will McGuire braves the assault of tomato missiles as he takes you into the trenches of La Tomatina!
Tomatoes spray across the sky. I tear off my leaking goggles amidst a red sea of thrashing limbs. I crouch to reload, but the crowd buckles and knocks me sideways. I clasp a rolling tomato, stagger to my feet and launch it. Grinning faces, splattered with pulp, cheer into the thunder. The sight is bloody and beautiful.
Tomatoes have been thrown along the streets of Buñol, on the last Wednesday of August, every year since 1945. The first incident occurred during a local parade. A participant’s costume fell apart due to the bustle of the crowd and, in a fit of rage, he retaliated by pelting the crowd with tomatoes from a vegetable stall. Authorities quelled the chaos for the moment, but the experience inspired a group of youths to plan a food fight for the same date the following year. And so, La Tomatina was born.
Attempts have been made to ban the event, but the enduring passion of the locals have ensured the survival of La Tomatina and established the festival as one of the premiere events on the European calendar. We booked six months in advance, and even then were lucky to secure tickets.
I arrive from Valencia with friends: Catley and Foote. Our bus is just one of hundreds. Pulling into Buñol we are greeted by an imposing industrial factory, now derelict with windows broken. This dusty, sleepy town wakes just for us.
Nigerians hover outside the coach to sell goggles. Catley picks up a pair and struggles to adjust the fitting as we join the procession of twenty thousand revellers and fruit enthusiasts. The buckle breaks apart and Catley scrambles to find a lost piece before it gets trampled underfoot.
Marquees along the road blast grooving Latino tunes, the streets already awash with sangria. We help ourselves to a pint and dance. Paella is hastily consumed.
Security check our wristbands, pat us down and then sniff us over with a muzzled Alsatian. Armed police stand unsmiling, ready to halt any premature tomato pelting. The street facades are draped in tarpaulin; the hatches battened for the coming tomatopocalypse.
We are treated to some pre-battle entertainment. Atop a large wooden pole hangs a net with a leg ham, stinking from the summer heat. Daring challengers throw themselves at the pole, desperate to reach the top and claim the rancid prize. They tear others off the pole, clawing upward, using the heads of those they defeat as a ladder. As the pole is coated in grease, every attempt quickly ends in failure. Worthy efforts are met with rousing applause and the rest receive boos and heckles. Determined to touch the pole, we crowbar our way through the packed crowd.
‘Push!’ A human crush attempts to hold the pyramid of thrashing, grunting bodies. The heat from the sun above, and the compression of the masses below, leaves us drenched in sweat. From the top of a building, locals pour hoses of cool water to stop us from fainting.
The rabble lifts up a scowling girl with the gritty determination of Xena: Warrior Princess. Her lip is torn and splashing blood down her chin and shirt, but she doesn’t seem to notice. The amused crowd chant ‘Let her up! Let her up!’ Xena attaches to a guy, fastened around the pole, making his last stand. Her finger nails carve down his bare back and she makes a step-ladder out of his face as she stomps her way up. Xena reaches higher than anyone before her, and demonstrates her success by swiping off the untouched clumps of grease. The masses hail her progress, but the pyramid wavers and there is a total collapse. Xena and her hapless step-ladder demise into a heap of bruised bodies and disappointment.
The pole is unmanned. Now is my chance.
‘Lift me up!’ I demand and am hoisted onto the necks of those in front. I teeter onwards, stepping on heads, apologizing as I go. I throw myself onto the pole, wrapping around it, fist pumping the air like a legend. I’ve made it!
‘Will! Will! Will!’ I chant, rallying the horde. But it doesn’t catch on. Twenty thousand blank faces stare back at me.
‘Get down!’
‘You’re not going to make it!’
‘You suck!’
So this is what it's like at the top of the world, you have to put up with the moans of the riff-raff below. They can't stop me now, this is my chance to stake a claim to the prize and the glory. The ham will be mine! They will love me once I take it for my own!
I straddle my thighs like a pole dancer and ascend. Reaching upwards, my sweaty palms meet pure slick. My grip falters.
‘No!’ I howl, as I slide helplessly. Twenty thousand jeer as I disappear under the trample of the next batch of hopefuls. But I don’t have long to brood. A gunshot sounds. The fight has officially begun!
Wardens shove us out the way to clear a path for the first truck. The crowd swells to accommodate the vehicle and the three of us are pressed up against a building. I gasp as the air squeezes out of me. On board the truck, festival staff fire rounds of tomato projectiles. As the first piece of fruit hits me I whoop with my last breath. The truck moves on and the pressure releases, freeing us into the melee. I find only a few tomatoes on the ground and worry there won’t be enough to go around. My concern is dismissed as seven more trucks arrive in a convoy of relentless tomato bombardment.
Most of the fruit is squashed and soft before it flies out from the truck; but the unripe, green tomatoes are hard as cricket balls. One strikes me and for a moment I fear my nose is broken. The trucks drop their back gate and a tidal wave of soup and fruit crash over the ground. In some stretches of road the juice is knee deep. One daredevil dives and skims along the ground, as we stamp our feet and splash him until he is submerged.
As the trucks depart, the fight starts in earnest. Foote lifts my hat and soaks my head with slop. I shriek and scoop a handful to return the favour. Volley after volley of tomatoes launch until I’m spent. I grab my friends. Their faces drip with red seed and pulp like they’ve been blasted by a shot gun.
On a low hanging ledge of the building behind us, a cocky show-off dances and dodges a barrage of tomatoes. He wags his bum as he teases the crowd. Taking him down is a matter of pride. Catley and I throw what we can, but the fruit floating around our feet is all soft and battered. Out of the deluge Foote plucks a firm, green contender. He throws his hardest, aiming for the show-off’s smug face, but the shot tracks low and hits him squarely in the groin. His eyes bulge in horror as he grabs himself. He drops off the ledge and lands in a curled-up ball. A roar of delight erupts. Fans slap Foote a high five. I tell everyone I knew him even before he threw the tomato.
Another gunshot sounds. All tomatoes down! La Tomatina is over for another year!
Coughing up bits of fruit, I survey the damage. Dazed survivors squelch through the blood bath. Every surface not wrapped under tarpaulin is splattered and streaked in red. From the smell, the tomatoes are already spoiling. Juice and sweat has wrecked every part of my clothing. Only one thing matters now – getting clean.
We peel off our shirts and discard them in a bin. Shoes are dumped. Even my pants will have to go. The generous locals, amused at the sight of us, stand with hoses to wash us down. Along a side street a local family at a balcony, two stories high, pour down to us from a watering can. ‘Uno mas?’ Catley requests, sending them back for a refill.
I give up on rinsing my legs. But the bus driver has a fit and refuses to let me back on. I wait till he turns to flick his cigarette butt and sneak on.
As I settle in for a little sleep on the drive back to Valencia, I wonder who cleans up the mess. It won’t be me. I can't look at another tomato ever again.
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