So as I mentioned I went from Alcázar de San Juan back to Valencia in the hope of going to "la tomatina" in Buņol (45min away from Valencia by bus). So did get to Valencia after a two and a half hour train ride (I had to ride "preferente" because I didnīt want to stay in the middle of nowhere another night) where I got some food and wine and a newspaper to read. They played some Elvis movie that I didnīt watch. I got to Valencia and walked to Hostal Pilar, where I had stayed before and had seen lots of roaches but I figured it would be the only one with rooms as they didnīt take reservations. So after a nice sweaty walk of a half hour I got there and found that they were booked...damn. So I began calling every number in my travel guide and they were all booked as well. Damn!!! The guy at the dest told me I couldnīt just sit in the lobby and make phone calls and that I had to leave, so I did. On the way out I ran into some Austrian guys tha Iīd met before and asked them if they would mind if I slept on the floor of their room. They said itīd be alright so I walked back up the stairs. The guy at the dest said it would not be alright at all because the room is for two people so only two people can stay there. I gave him a big "thank you so very much" and walked out. I went to a little coffee shop that Iīd frequented when I was there last and talked with the owner. He gave me a couple numbers to call but they were all booked as well. I drank my coke and headed back to the bus station defeated. I would get a train to Granada or Sevilla and not go to la Tomatina. I found out at the bus station that all of the trains were full so I couldnīt even leave!!!! Ok, so I was going to check my luggage at the consigna and sleep in a park or something. I went to the info desk to inquire about the whereabouts of the lockers and met a couple girls who were struggling to talk with the info people. I butted in and told them that if they didnīt have reservations that they were fucked and should find some other city to go to. They looked at me like they didnīt appreciate that advice and showed me their book which was just a list of hostals. I took a look and saw two that I hadnīt tried. So I whipped out my phone and called them. One didnīt answer but the other did. Did they have a room for three. yes. Sweet! So I booked it. Then I looked at the two girls and asked them if it would be ok that we share a room and luckily they said yes. So we got on the metro and finally got there. It was an old Catholic school converted into an Albergue. We got our place (after I did some translating for a Japanese girl who didnīt speak any spanish) and that was that. The two girls ended up being very nice even though they were Bavarian. One was even a baker and had a pet deer! Can you can more Bavarian than that (although she didnīt drink beer). The other worked putting glass in windows and doors etc. They were very nice. The guys at the desk were also very nice, from Columbia. We went to a Kabob place down the road where the guy who worked there spoke Spanish, German, English, and whatever language was his native language. Very nice guy. Lots of nice people there. Nice. I told the Germans about the tomato fight and they decided to go. The next day we went to the beach and hung out and didnīt do much. The next day we woke up early (in spite of having downed a couple of bottles of wine the night before) and got on a bus to Buņol. We got there, I changed into my white pants and shirt (both of which Iīd bought in Pamplona), checked my backpack in the consigna, and headed into the crowd. Unfortunately I couldnīt bring my camera in with me, it would have been completely destroyed, so I donīt have pics. One of the girls I was with, a Quebecois woman, bought an underwater disposable camera (you may be able to see some pics on the net of the chaos). We picked up a map of the area with the rules of the fight. "Squish the tomatoes before you throw them. Donīt take peopleīs shirts. Once the whistle blows you cannot throw anymore tomatoes. and some other ones. I didnīt understand the shirt rule. Was it refering to taking peopleīs shirts that they had stuffed in the back of their pants because they didnīt want to wear them or what? As we walked throught the crowd, or rather squeezed through, a group of about seven guys grabbed me and ripped my shirt off. Then I understood. They left some nice shirt burns on my neck and mustīve scratched my side as there was a nice superficial wound there as well (theyīre all scabbed up now). So shirtless I kept on trucking. We got in as deep as possible (about 30 thousand people were trying to fit in a space a quarter the size of an American football field). The firecracker went off and a few tomatoes flew through the air. Boy, I thought, this is lame. Then the truck came through. It was like a modified dumptruck and there were some people inside who were throwing tomato chunks all over (this happened 3 or 4 times). Everyone was covered with tomato. We were a human gazpacho. The smell was horrible. The human soup was almost up to my knees. It was in my ears, my mouth, my nose, my eyes (that hurt a bit). Finally I was tired of throwing tomato and catching it so we headed out very very slowly through the crowd. Out of the crowd there were some guys with hoses hosing down the participants. We cleaned up a little bit and then found out that there were some showers (I put a picture of that here under the picture thing). It was a river that we could wash up in with a wall of showers as well. I just used the river. I stripped down to my boxers and washed up the best that I could and then changed into cleaner clothes. Hung out for a while and rested. I went into a restaurant to piss and saw a group of dreadheads snorting lines of coke off of a table in the middle of the cafe (Buņol was a crazy place that day) and the smell of hash was everywhere in the city. We finally got home and I showered like mad. Went to the grocery store and bought some food and a bottle of Havana Club rum and coke and headed to the beach where we stayed untill about 1230am and took a cab back to the hostal. Fun day. The next morning I had planned to leave and go to Sevilla but the train was full so I bought a ticket for the next day. Preferente again so I wouldnīt have to worry about food (but then I found out that they didnīt serve food for that trip...fuckers). So now Iīm in Sevilla. It is really really hot and humid and really beautiful. I got in last night and got a room with a Kiwi guy that I met on the bus on the way into town (interesting guy, he had been traveling for four months and had gone through most of the middle east and was in Lebanon when the bombing started...and left as soon as he could). Today I met the family with whom I will be living. Give me a few days to judge them and then Iīll write more about them. life is looking good! (although I have a fuck of a cold)
Later.
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