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As I sat down on the desk in my hostel to put in writing this piece, I pressured myself to cease fascinated about what might’ve been and the fact I used to be dwelling in that second.
“It’s going to be the expertise of a lifetime,” my pals stated as they noticed me off on the airport a few days beforehand. If solely I had recognized simply how laborious it was going to hit me each time I skilled issues and didn’t have him there to share it with.
I’d travelled greater than 7,000km (4,350 miles) from my native India to Valencia, Spain, to witness one of many world’s most well-known festivals, La Tomatina. Billed because the world’s largest meals battle, it appeared like the right antidote to my sorrowful post-break-up state, and I awakened the morning of the occasion at 4.30am, desirous to get caught in.
Why did my boyfriend and I break up, you ask? The caste variations, that are nonetheless prevalent in India as we speak, are in charge, opposite to what the world sees.
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As I left the hostel, the workers member on the entrance desk stated to me in a sleepy tone: “Tomatina is not a Spanish pageant; it belongs to the world now.”
Strolling in the direction of the bus cease that may take me the 40km from Valencia to Bunol, the place the pageant takes place, I noticed two guys round my age heading in the identical route. “Are you going to the pageant too?” I requested. They nodded, and we fell into step and straightforward dialog. They had been each from Japan however had been travelling round Europe for a number of months.
“I got here to Spain to neglect that my backpack was stolen in Slovenia,” considered one of them instructed me, seeming extremely calm, despite the fact that his bag contained his work laptop computer, iPad, chargers, licences and extra. “I’m simply grateful for this life and the expertise I’m about to have right here.” His phrases struck a chord as I, too, was right here to neglect and to attempt to stay within the current.
As we approached a protracted queue for the bus, one other stranger began chatting to us. Dr Tapish, a surgeon from India, had additionally taken this pilgrimage of kinds to flee the mundanity of his life again house. He and his pals invited me to hitch them for the day.
The story of La Tomatina, as a neighborhood trainer named Yolanda Diaz defined to us on the bus, is about extra than simply throwing tomatoes. “It began as a scuffle,” she instructed me, her eyes proud with the reminiscence of a pageant she has attended for the previous 20 years. “It started in 1945 when a battle broke out throughout a parade, and annoyed youths began throwing greens from a close-by market.” In different phrases, it was a spontaneous, rebellious act.
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Over the many years, it advanced, was banned after which reinstated in 1959, when locals carried a big tomato in a coffin, pretending to mourn the loss of life of the once-great occasion, and forcing authorities to permit it once more and to embrace it as an official pageant.
“For the world, it’s an hour of tomato-drenched chaos, however for us, it’s a 10-day pageant with meals contests and music throughout the town,” she beamed. Diaz additionally instructed me how the purple and blue flags held on the balconies in Bunol belonged to the 2 primary “tribes” of the city. “I belong to the purple one,” she added.
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Alongside the way in which, I additionally met Sigfrido, proprietor of La Palleria, a restaurant in Bunol, which had been buying and selling in the identical central spot within the city for forty years, and who had witnessed the pageant’s progress firsthand. “Earlier, it was extra individuals, fewer police; now it’s extra police, fewer individuals,” he instructed me. “I get pleasure from speaking to individuals from everywhere in the world throughout the pageant.” His phrases captured the gorgeous contradiction of the occasion: a neighborhood custom that has turn out to be a world hub of connection.
As my new pals and I departed the bus and walked in the direction of a rising crowd within the centre of the town, the nervous pleasure was palpable. A torrent of chilly water abruptly cascaded from a balcony above us, drenching us and making us chortle and recoil. “It’s like a baptism!” known as out considered one of my new pals from the ocean of our bodies round us.
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The air hummed with a dozen languages. Folks had been crammed shoulder to shoulder within the slim road; a human river flowed towards the Plaza del Pueblo. After which, at midday on the dot, the primary truck appeared, its horn blaring out like a battle cry. And a minute later, the world dissolved into an excellent, sticky, purple chaos.
Extra vans arrived to dump 120 tonnes of tomatoes into the streets. My pals and I clung to the partitions as the primary spherical of laborious, purple lumps had been launched in each route. I felt overwhelmed. The earthy scent of tomatoes grew to become all-encompassing, combined with the scent of sweat. There was an eruption of excited shouting and the sound of squishing, laughing and yelling. I used to be not a person, however a part of a single, pulsating, tomato-covered being.
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At that second, throwing a tomato felt much less like an act of aggression and extra like an act of give up. All my meticulous planning, my fastidiously constructed partitions, my lingering heartache, melted away with each “splat”. Everybody on that road was directly a goal and a good friend.
An hour-long battle concluded with a last cannon shot. After which got here the hoses. Locals, with an air of practised effectivity, turned high-pressure hoses on the group. The streets round us grew to become a torrent of purple pulp. The method of washing away the tomatoes felt symbolic.
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I entered the purple sea as a solitary pilgrim, uncooked with grief. I emerged feeling lighter. The connections I made with travellers and locals proved that life’s which means is present in dwelling, not simply current. My shared experiences with strangers proved to be therapeutic. I didn’t know these individuals; I didn’t know their backgrounds or their standing in society. And neither did I must, as a result of in these few livid hours of throwing tomatoes, we grew to become one.
I went to La Tomatina searching for liberation from grief, and I walked away cleansed, having washed away my unhappiness with pureed tomatoes.
The right way to get there
A return flight from London Stansted (STN) to Valencia (VLC) with Ryanair takes 2 hours and 55 minutes and begins from £30. EasyJet flies from Gatwick to Valencia in 2 hours and 20 minutes from £45.
You’ll be able to guide tickets for the pageant via ticketstomatina.com with a bus/entry/after-party bundle for €48 (£41). If reserving independently, trains from Valencia to Bunol begin from €3.70 (£3.21) a method with the earliest departing at 6.30am.
The place to remain
The most effective place to remain for those who’re not overnighting in Bunol is in Valencia. Russafa Youth Hostel, a brief 15-minute stroll from the Ciutat Vella (metropolis centre) in Valencia. You’ll be able to attain Bunol from Valencia by bus (common journey time an hour, £5) or practice (common journey time 1 hour half-hour, £5).
You can even keep in Bunol at Resort Ignacio, however be ready to guide effectively prematurely of the pageant.
