La Tomatina...and other stuff

La Tomatina....well what can I say....it literally is the most CRAZY experience I have ever had. To start with, after a 6 hour drive in the ridiculous heat, (which Ben managed to sneakily get his way out of by ensuring that the sun was directly facing my side of the car at all times, swapping driving just as the sun was changing sides...although he denies this was his plan), we were initially surprised as to the seemingly lack of crowds for such a large event. After finding our way to the town centre, we easily found the street in which the tomato fight would take place...it was a narrow street shadowed by two story houses on each side, and each house was completely covered from head to toe in massive tarpaulins. Down the end of one street was an A & P Show style fair. Although not busy, the air was buzzing with excitement and celebration. Families had set up trestle tables covered in white paper all along the street and were having dinner and Sangria. The first highlight of this event was walking past a man chilling out on one corner casually putting out the vibe for any woman walking by, munching on a raw onion, like it was an apple...not at all bizarre! I doubt he picked up too many girls in this manner.
The actual day of the festival was really just a morning. From before sunrise hoards of people began piling into the tiny town, wearing the bare minimum, thick sneakers, goggles and even a few shower caps. Each person had a Sangria in their hand seemingly oblivious to the early morning hours. Once we all packed, and I do mean packed, into the strez\




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mid blog...mid thought...I look up and see a car heading straight towards us...I scream...we swerve left, then right...then crash! 'Shit'...is about all that came out of my mouth at the time!

Ummm....so we just crashed Derby, or should I say, Ben crashed...as I was blogging at the time and didn't realise what was going on till we were mid crash. I guess you are curious as to what happened. Well, our left wheel had been playing up for the last few days, and we had had the tie-rod replaced but the noise had continued...a kind of thuck thuck thuck...being that it was on my side I was sure the wheel was about to fall of at any moment and kill us both...this was not the case, and at times I wish I had a tad more car knowledge so that I might not fret about things not likely to happen. It turns out our CV joint was needing replacing. Being that the noise was not too bad we decided to drive to Barcelona and get it fixed there while we did some sightseeing for a few days. Packed up and on our way we had got about 30 minutes out of Valencia when the noise started sounding worse...and my knowledge of what the problem was did not still my thoughts of wheels falling off at any moment. To distract myself I decided to blog about La Tomatina.

Ben was worried about the CV joint and decided to pull over and check it out...now being that naturally we drive on the left side, and being that Ben was completely distracted by the terrible noise of poor Derby's left wheel, he did what any man having been driving for 25 years would do...pulled out onto the road without thinking...unfortunately for us, we were not in the UK, or in NZ, meaning that the side we pulled out on was the wrong side, and within a few moments we were driving head on towards another car. Being that Ben was thinking about the wheel, his first thought was not that he was on the wrong side, but that the other car was. This being his first thought he did what anyone would do and swerved slightly to the left till it suddenly dawned on him that he was the one in the wrong and corrected himself by swerving to the right. Unfortunately for us, the other car had decided that the only way to avoid us was to swerve in the same direction...making it a head on crash.
I tell you...trying to sort out the details of a crash with Spanish Police and Spanish citizens and Spanish road-side safety team is not the easiest process in the world. There was much sign language, much charades, much writing down...but we got there in the end.

Originally we though our car had not been damaged other than cosmetic, but after deciding that we would drive out of the tiny town we were in to a larger one to find a mechanic, we soon noticed that the large puddle of water under the front of our car was in fact not from the solar showers on the roof, but the radiator. So we are here, in Alamenara, the tiniest town in the world, it is the weekend, everything is closed, it is 45 degrees, there is not a drop of water to be seen, and high on coffee, we are making our way between 3 cafe's to keep ourselves amused till Monday. Will we be able to get the car fixed at a price that insurance is prepared to pay? Will we be able to continue on our journey with the mighty Derby? Or, will we have to part way's with our mobile hotel and continue on foot, trains and buses, and try to make our money still stretch the full two months due to the fact that home is not an option thanks to Hayley, our sub-letter till the 8th of October? Oh the questions! Not quite the dream we had set out on!

So...back to La Tomatina...'and I do mean packed', into the street. Ben and I had found ourselves a spot back against one of the walls. Now this was not the original spot we had headed to, but due to the movement of the crowd, with which we could do nothing but be carried along by, we ended up squashed back against a wall. I found myself very intimate with 2 Asian girls, an English girl, a young Spanish girl and her father, and not far away Ben. You might wonder how I could be so close to all those people, well just picture arms, underarms, heads, hair, shoulders, all pushing into my body at some point. I found at times I literally could not breath...but thankfully at these times when I called to Ben, he managed to shove people away, (well sort of away, meaning they were digging themselves halfway into my body rather than as far in as they could go), and give me some breathing time. Once we were all packed in this manner, the cannon went of signalling the start of the event, and they brought the trucks through the streets dropping tomatoes on everyone. How exactly they brought the trucks through the packed crowds is beyond me, but I do know at once point, in front of us, a girl got caught under one trucks wheel. The breathing stopped till the trucks passed and then the tomato throwing began! People from the second stories of some houses threw welcome 'Agua' – water – onto us, a nice refreshment from the sweat, tomato smell and the heat of the beating sun. Within roughly two hours the event was finished, everyone and everything was a pinky-red. Out came the fire hoses to wash down the houses and people scrabbled to push themselves in front of them. It was messy, smelly, wet, sweaty, cramped, and a whole heap of fun!