Get your goggles ready! It`s La Tomatina time!!!
La Tomatina is the world’s biggest food fight (tomato fight I should say) held every year on the last Wednesday of August in the town of Buñol near Valencia, Spain. La Tomatina has become a huge event and is one of the most popular attractions among backpackers travelling through Europe.
Drawing a crowd of up to 40,000 people, La Tomatina is a food fight on steroids. The festivities begin at 10:00 am with the ‘Palo Jabon’ – where someone has to climb a grease-covered pole to release the ham that is tied to the top. It normally takes around an hour before someone actually gets the ham free and drops it to the crowd below. During the ‘Palo Jabon’ the crowd starts to go wild, signing and dancing, while being sprayed with water from hoses.
At around 11:00 am the real craziness begins – a signal shot is fired and people in large trucks begin to throw tons of tomatoes into the Plaza del Pueblo: approx. 40 metric tons or around 150,000 tomatoes to be more precise. The tomatoes begin to fly and everything goes red. An hour-long tomato-throwing, red-slushy-tomatoe-paste-mess ensues. After an hour of the craziest food fight imaginable, a second shot rings out signaling the end of the fight.
Sounds like fun… Right? It is!
There are, however, some basic rules that must be followed: Tomatoes must be squashed before throwing (to avoid injuries), only tomatoes are allowed to be thrown, participants have to allow the trucks space to drive through, T-shirts must remain on, after the second signal shot the fight is over and no more tomatoes should be thrown.
Here is some other useful advice:
– Very import!!! Do not wear Flip-flops, you may get hurt.
– Wear old Cloths or cloths that you are not planning to wear again.
– Don’t forget to bring your waterproof camera
Our hostels in Barcelona highly recommends La Tomatina!
Go!! Have fun!!! And take a shower afterwards!!!!
Good Luck to all barcelona backpackers traveling to Buñol for La Tomatina.
