Valencia – The ultra crazy trips continue and they may well have peaked with this one! We are back from our latest crazy trip that saw us finish in Ibiza but started at La Tomatina in Bunol which is a small town just outside Valencia. We landed on Tuesday evening in Valencia and grabbed a cab over to our hotel which was just outside the centre of Valencia. The hotel itself was quite nice although they spent all their money on the reception area and the general look of the hotel. The reception and bar downstairs were really nice whereas the rooms were tiny but we spent little time in there anyway. Tuesday evening was spent drinking in the hotel bar as we worked out the plan of action for the Wednesday, La Tomatina. We asked around and quite a few people said you needed to get going really early in order to get into the middle of the action. As it turned out everyone said you needed to get to the train station at about 7 am or something close to it. So that meant getting up at about 6.30 am…getting up early is not something that is ever done on a fatbritney tour but needs must. However, as always we kept drinking anyway in the hotel bar where it turned out that if you went to the bar when the bar manager wasn’t there you ended up with more generous measures and paid far less for the drinks! Needless to say we were very happy about this!

So we got up the next day at 6.30 am and grabbed a cab down to the station where there were hundereds of other people waiting to get onto the train to Bunol and aparently pretty much all of Australia was headed down there. However, the plus side of this was that you could throw a tomatoe in almost any direction and hit an Aussie! The train was cheap but was quite long to get there. We stepped off the train in Bunol and there were people everywhere and music banging out from all directions. We followed the crowds who all seemed to know where they were going and headed straight for the middle of the town to get in the action! On the way down the hill there are loads of the locals selling beers for 1 euro each and bottles of water for the same….whcih was odd because as Ben and I discussed, if it was us we would have sold them for about 8 euros each and made a killing. Still we kept on goingand after about 10 or 15 mintues of walking we arrived in the middle of the town where there were 1000′s of people around the it was pretty rowdy! No one seems to know the origins of the festival but it starts with a huge greasy pole with a hma on the top and the idea is that someone climbs up there and gets it down. The pole is about the same height as a telegraph pole and the grease is laid on thick all over it…it looks like handfuls of lard have been put all over it. People were forming human pyramids, standing on each others shoulders and using peices of twine to climb the pole. All the time the locals are standing on top of their tarpaulin covered buildings spraying water on everyone, so you are soaked before it even starts. The fatbritney boys got right into the moddle of the madness (0f course!) and we were met by the sight of a gap in the middle of 100′s of people. Initally this was a little confusing but as it turns out the gap was deliberate because anyone that crossed was punced on by a group of spanish blokes who then ripped the shirt off your back! This in turn caused a few fights as some people didn’t seem to realise what was going on! Sensibly the fatbritney boys removed their shirts so as to avoid this. Not that we would have cared if the T-shirt were ripped as we were both wearing the cheapest clothes we could find including clothes from Tesco, Asda and Matalan. Classy!

After a couple hours of standing around getting wet and watching the greasy pole being climbed there was an enermous bang in the sky. This was the signal that the trucks with the tomatoes were about to come round. The rowdiness grew and then at the end of the street we saw the first huge truck. These are massive dump trunks full to the brim of tomatoes with people in there chucking them out at you as the truck very slowly rolls past. And so it began. 2 hours of complete and utter craziness with tomatoes flying everywhere. Then as the truck was making it’s 3rd pass it suddenly stopped just where we were and slowly raised the back of it and dumped out all the tomatoes and the madness increased yet further. As they poured forth from the truck it became clear how many tomatoes there actually were. Once they had all been dumped I couldn’t see my feet and didn’t get to see them for about an hour and a half! This was the most insane thing fatbritney has ever done and probably will ever do…I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how insane it all actually was. The great thing is that it is all done in a party atmosphere and you can throw tomatoes at everyone and anyone you like…naturally the fatbritney boys traded a few blows before widening our range to include…anyone we could reach with our throws! Running battles developed with pretty much anyone and everyone and were all won by us…I think! There were tomatoes everywhere the eye could see and constantly 100′s in the air. We both got hit in the head a lot as well as other slightly more painful areas! Being quite tall I got hit in the head about 8.2 million times, while Ben was using a video camera to bring you all some of the madness he was a favourite target of pretty much everyone! The worst part being when the trucks went past you as you were sitting ducks as the people in the back of the trucks with all the tomatoes hurled them at you at the speed of light. So everyone tried to hide as best you can but all that happens after that is that you end up getting hit in the back a lot!  As it came to a close we moved down the street and ducked down a side street with stairs leading down to another street. As we turned to go down the street we noticed that the stairs were actual a river of tomato that was flooding down the street and people were diving down it and almost swimming down it…it was an incredible site!

At the end of the madness there is another rocket fired into the sky and everyone stops and tried to find a place to get clean…or at least cleaner. The locals were still out with their hoses and buckets of water which were helpful. However, the male locals all seemed a lot more keen on cleaning women than men…dirty old perverts! We trudged back to the train station, slowly developing trench foot on the way, and joined the ENORMOUS queue to get on the train. The queue moved so slowy that I suspect lines at the sperm bank move quicker than this! They won’t let you back on the train without being “clean” and with a T-shirt on. However, we had come prepared! We had taken some sandwich bags with a clean T-shirt in and managed to put these on while cleaning off some of the tomato as well. This left us just about presentable enough to get on the train again, which was absolutely packed with people all of whom stank and were knackered. Having gotten up really early, been in the sun all day and thrown tomatoes everywhere everyone was shattered and the train back was very quiet! Although the train was standing room only everyone decided to sit on the floor instead. So the train eventually arrived back in Valencia and we eventually got back to our hotel. After each having a marathon shower, putting on clean fresh clothes has never felt so good!

After a quick siesta we headed out to the harbour for a bit of dinner as we had been told that there were some good restaurants down there that would do us a massive piella. We jumped in a cab and made our way down there, driving round some of the F1 circuit used the weekend before for the Grand Prix. Down on the water front is a pretty big beach and a nice harbour with a lot of restaurants running along there so we pitched up in one called The Pearl and ordered in a mixed piella…which was amazing and huge! Full of prawns, mussells, chicken, pork and langoustine. Ben battled with some langoustine like he was fighting the Kraken and at the end of it had the smallest amount of meat ever. I highly recommend the piella there as it was beautiful and the view wasn’t too shabby either!

That was about it for our stay in Valencia as the next morning we got in a cab to the airport. Valencia is very nice and there is a possibilty that the fatbritney boys will be back to explore the city further. As for La Tomatina I think it is something that everyone should try once. It is utter madness and brilliant fun to be allowed to act like a 2 year old and play with your food because deep down you know you want to!

Next on the trip was…Palma in Majorca…