Random Traveller Hello and welcome to the long discourse on Rhiannon’s Adventures So Far, that I finally made myself sit down and write because of the impending DOOM that is called Manufacturer Default. My little baby is a lovely shiny white Macbook that I’ve decided to name Poodle. This is because its main function is to be pretty. However I will soon have to send it off to some unloving ruffians who will beat it and tell it not to keep randomly shutting down on me.

It is held in Buñol. It is exactly what the title says.

Imagine the most insane mosh you have ever been in and then add several tonnes of tomato pulp.

Everyone, thousands of people, were packed into this long street no wider than my bedroom. I’m there, so squashed I’m having flashbacks of a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert and soaked from the hoses and buckets of water being thrown from the apartments above. At least they were supposed to be water. I got hit by a bucket of something that definitely tasted like cold coffee.

My friend (female) ended up topless after getting too close to one of the pockets of half naked people yelling “Camiseta! Camiseta!” My brother stripped voluntarily so he would have clothes to wear home. I tried to get closer to the walls and hit anyone who wanted a piece of my clothing.

While all this is going on I’m starting to wonder about the distinct lack of tomatoes. I was thinking they must all be in the square at the end of the street and I was missing out. But wait! Here comes a massive truck! When I looked up and saw a thing the size of a small semi-trailer approaching the mouth of the calle all that came to mind was “Fuck No!?” The crowd went from writhing mass of densely packed flesh to two rows of very still compacted bodies as the massive thing lumbered past. Every 20m or so it would stop, tilt up the container and pour a tonne of tomatoes onto the street. The crowd quickly returned to a writing mass of densely packed flesh, except now with ammunition. Oh, and this happened 6 times.

On the sixth occasion James had the luck of being right behind the truck as it stopped. They held the back open and he was in tomatoes past his knees. He flopped back and got a brief swim before everyone else piled in. I think there was a near drowning.

So in summary it was an Experience (capital letter necessary); one that was scary, interesting and disappointingly without personal photos. You should have seen me afterwards. It took three days and multiple washes to get all the pulp out of my hair. I think my shirt still smells. In fact Valencia, an hour away, smelt of tomatoes. Admittedly this was not due to winds, but thousands of tomato covered people returning to their hostels.

A strange question that may never be answered is: Why, amidst the thousands of people who had gathered in this little Spanish town for a festival that admits it has absolutely no point, did we bump into several Whistler ski instructors?