Ole Ole...Ole Ole...La Tomatina, Non non!

Well, as I´m cleaning the remaining tomato out of every oriface, I have to recommend Bunol and Spain´s Tomatina Festival. If ever you could picture being violated by a vegetable this is it. At 11.00am a cannon sounds in the streets of Bunol to signify to the 30 000 people stretched along a 5m wide street that the tomatoes may begin, and the trucks are coming. Shoulder to shoulder the people are packed along the main drag, and however impossible it may seem, dump trucks of tomatoes push their way through, sending you pressed against the walls as the drivers and riders fling ripe, old, soggy tomatoes at your face, head, body and spirit. Never before have I willingly subjected myself to such torturous appeal, buy oh mama, it was glorious. The six of us Canadians stood hard and strong, arms locked in a circle of tripled gravity, resisting both Dump truck and drunk spanyard in one circular stronghold as tomato water passed by us in a torrent above our shins. We lost shirts, shoes and socks, but kept our bodies in tact, albeit covered in sauce and stem. When the second cannon fires at noon, the bodies flow out of the narrow street and down to the river bed where a PVC pipe has had holes drilled in it to serve as a makeshift shower. Lines of tomato soaked people played in the streams of filthy bath water, as still more came down the hills from the finished festival. Clean as best we could, we walked back up the hill and caught the bus back to Valencia for the night and the next day home to Benitachell to a warm meal and new clothes...and of course, we ate tomatoes for dinner. How could we not? We were owed the revenge. much love, Liam.