Tortured muscles from being bombarded with tomatoes, aching body from the whole fight, exhaustion from the pushing and making my way through a hyper crowd of more than thousands of people, covered with squashed tomatoes, being hammered with cold water from all directions, the long wait for shower and much more!
Is La Tomatina Festival worth attending?
Well, you could answer it for yourself!
After winding up my crazy Seville expedition, it was time for another venture – La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain. I had booked my experience with Stokes Travels because of their intriguing description: free sangrias, tent by the beach in a small village of Pucol, far away from the main city of Valencia! It had ticked all my boxes of an ideal experience!
Stokes Travel is an Australian based travel company who believe in partying hard and to the fullest. If you can manage to not judge, you are going to have the best time of your life.
Day 1: 2 Days before La Tomatina!
The campsite in Pucol was shared with local families and Stokes Travel! I enter the site to the view of a bunch of people already drunk, meeting for the first time and getting to know each other! Families ecstatic at the view of everyone getting wasted. I walked in towards the check-in counter when a guy in his undies offered me a welcome drink, a sangria or a beer. That was definitely an overwhelming welcome!
Intro to Stokes
With a sangria in my hand, bunch of entry wrist bands and my backpack, I followed the host dragging my carry-on on the gravel path towards the tents. After seeing some classy, comfortable and luxurious tents on my way towards mine, my first reaction to the small tents set up by Stokes was a big laughter in my head! I started thinking about how to fit my carry-on, my backpack, myself and a tent-mate in it? But we all very well did!!
Unique Friends!
While soaking all the welcome information on bathroom situation, paid charging for electronic devices at the reception, paying for toilet papers etc, I couldn’t help but notice two Spanish men under a self-pitched cabana enjoying their drinks, music and patiently waiting for me to join them. They turned out to be my tent neighbors. With only google translator as a common point of contact between us three, we became best of friends over drinks, lee wa puff and music!
I decided to explore the surroundings after settling in and get another sangria. It was 4:00PM and people were sh-wasted, an amazing vibe nonetheless! Just when I started socializing, I met my tent mate who welcomed me with drunk hugs and chats. We ended up spending some time together until I met other folks, majority of whom were from Austrailia, New Zealand and then there were us, minority people from other countries.
The Best thing about the campsite!
The best part about the campsite was definitely the beach that acted as our savior! We had to stop the party every night around midnight to be cordial to the other families on the campsite. Hence, beach was our only option to get crazy, with people skinny dipping, random make outs, bonfires, drinks, engrossing long conversations with the folks from around the world and it was just day 1!
Day 2: 1 Day before La Tomatina!
I had not even recovered from Seville adventure and found myself on an even bigger one in Pucol, which is a quiet and secluded village otherwise! This is the only time of the year when the campsite gets flooded with reservations.
It was time to take it easy before the storm aka Tomatina! But you don’t necessarily listen to yourself, now do you? After catching up on some sleep and taking a nice walk by the beach followed by delicious paella, I thought of going back and resting some more! But you meet two, then three join you, then you run into 5 and that’s how party begins!!
Day 3: La Tomatina
It was time for Tomatina!!!!
The day of Tomatina is an early morning! Bunol is around an hour and a half away from Pucol, so we left around 7:30 am to get to the festival site. It was the most dreadful bus ride with it being extremely cold inside and people being hungover from the previous day!
I swear to god I couldn’t stand another sangria in front of me!!
Bunol scenes
Soon we reached Bunol to the sight of infinite buses parked in the parking lot! How it basically works is, you book your travel with one of the agencies who pick you up from their pick up point, they get you the entry ticket to the festival, you can keep all your stuff in the bus and then wait in the line to get your wrist band.
Thankfully, with Stokes Travel, we already had wrist bands and could skip the line. We pretended to sip sangria with others and ran towards the festival site to avoid more drinking. There was music playing around, food on the streets and more drinks of-course! It is a long walk from the parking lot towards the festival site. So brace yourself!!!
Tomatina Scenes – The slippery pole, a whole lot of time to waste?
After we reached the spot, we could see a bunch of people crazily climbing the pole lathered with grease to catch the ham hanging on top of the pole, as per the tradition. It was hilarious as everyone kept pulling each other down, making it impossible. We waited for two pointless hours just to see everyone’s effort go in vain after which we heard the second horn! It was time to let the trucks in and start the food fight!
The Fight for survival!
Thousands and thousands of tomatoes contributed to a huge tomato fight! The adrenaline rush that pumped through as soon as we saw the trucks, was ineffable. As soon as we were pinned to the side of the road to let the trucks pass, that first tomato on the floor was just the start. What followed, was a big pool of tomato juice in which you could literally swim.
Enough is enough!
After just an hour, I was over the whole pelting each other with tomatoes and wanted to get out of the mess. The fight without any music, pressure from the water shower and people being too aggressive with tomatoes had exhausted me! Little did I know getting out of the site was another big struggle. I and my friend made our way through the crowd and trust me it wasn’t easy. After about 40 minutes of pushing and shoving, we made it out of the festival site.
Clean or not to clean is the question?
As we walked towards our bus, we saw locals offering showers for 1 euro to clean up. We had no cash on us, so we chose free showers on our way. After a long walk and multiple showers later, we managed to clean ourselves but the next challenge was to find the bus among so many other parked in the lot. Don’t forget to remember the driver of your bus or at least the bus number.
And the wait continues!
After the festival, everyone seemed to be in different zones. Some looked like they were ready to crash, some in dire need of a shower and some hungry as hell! I was a bit of last two. The campsite had a big line for shower, followed by another big line for food! Basically epic waiting day. After cleaning up and feeding our hungry bellies, all I could think of was a nap.
After party scenes
La Tomatina After Party is one of the most awaited event after the festival itself. However after an exhausting day, the after party was a clear no for me! I had a flight to Barcelona the next day. So I decided to take it easy, spend some quality time with like minded people and enjoy the last day in Bunol, Valencia.
Now that I have been to the festival, would I do it again? No!
I would never ever put myself through the scuffle again! Would I advice you to do it? Yes!
You have to experience La Tomatina once in your life! Because in the end, it is all about the experience!
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