The battle for tomatoes Eden
SPAIN | Thursday, 15 May 2014 | Views [140] | Scholarship Entry
In the purpose of adrenalin pleasure and unique experience we set off for the Spain. La Tomatina happened to be the most unique but never to be beck again festival. Assumption was made, and we were ready to embrace this paradox.
The festival is held in the small village Bunol, near Valencia, on the last Wednesday of August. This village can be reached by train which starts from the outskirts of Valencia, and doesn’t run so often, that we have remarkable opportunity to feel like we are in our home town, Belgrade, on the public bus during the rush hour. That’s very thoughtful of Valencia people to make us that pleasure.
The trumpet and missiles which fired tomatoes in the air announced beginning of the festival.
This is ready phase, after which comes steady moment when the trucks unload tones of tomatoes at Plaza del Pueblo. In this steady phase I have lost my slipper, found somebody else s shoe, have gotten an enochlophobia for a brief moment, and adrenalin rush annulled all the previous troubles as soon as the go phase was started.
With diving glasses, old clothes, one slipper and just founded shoe I was ready. The only tricky thing is that the tomatoes in the first wave are tough and when it hits you can leave short-term mark as battlefield souvenir. In the meanwhile tomato changed its physical state, and you find yourself in the tomato juice river with flying souse over your head or towards you, to be more precise. What I didn’t know is that you shouldn’t, by any means, try to call somebody in crowd, because you will end up with some shirt from the ground in your mouth. I was inexperienced so I tasted this boiled tomato shirt delicacy. After trumpets sound the end of the battle, grandmas from their balconies are spilling water from pots, pans and buckets on the participants, grandpas with a hoses provides free body washing along the way to the train station. Spare clothes that we have left at the organize storage, have been put on, battle uniform neatly packed in a bag we thrown in the trash, and looking almost decent we went back to Valencia. Even though we thought that it will not be convenient to visit all the cultural places Valencia city has to offer with the tomato tuft on our head, lot of tourists were walking in the central streets with dried tomato stains on clothes, hands, feet and hair that we were able to fill its rancid smell, but oh boy, it smelled as if every person in the city threw up.
Tags: 2014 Travel Writing Scholarship - Euro Roadtrip
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