Someone (peers, media, society, the world) convinced me that Tomatina is one of those ultimate bucketlist moments. A food fight in the middle of Spain that lasts an hour, how bad could it be?

Well first of all, the bus to Buñol left at like 4am from Madrid. Mistake number one. I had just arrived from London the night before, had a head cold, and felt like death on no sleep. The people who met us from Valencia had a much easier morning. So if you ever go… don’t travel from Madrid.

I will say that booking through one of those social media event things where they coordinate the entire day with buses and give you a T-shirt isn’t so bad. The shirt is white… and I guarantee you won’t come home with it. Mine got destroyed.

In terms of prep, I brought a backpack with a change of clothes, extra shoes, face wipes, a towel, and a few plastic bags. I also brought a sweater even though it was the middle of summer which was great when the bus was FRIGID. I brought my waterproof camera to document the moment, and I also wrapped my phone in two ziploc bags (for the snapchat… duh). There are a bunch of people selling swim goggles and whatnot while entering the town… and although it hurts to get tomato in the eyes the goggles obstruct your vision and are really disorienting. If you wear goggles might I suggest ski goggles?

Tomatina in a nutshell: you enter a zone with thousands of your new frenemies. They lock it off. People from the balconies spray you with water and alcohol and laugh at you. Suddenly, the balcony people disappear and all of the windows and shutters are locked. It’s a bit unnerving. You already can’t move… and if you’re petite your life sucks 5 times as much. Suddenly, huge dump trucks full of people and tomatoes drive into the crowd. Although you were already squished, you have to squish even more to the curbs or risk being run TF over. I was jostled and felt as though I was suffocated and would be trampled. The people in the trucks dump tomatoes on the crowd. These trucks continue to come during the entire hour you are trapped inside and the crowd suddenly reverts to the most horrible side of humanity you could see in a tomato fight.

Although illegal to throw a full tomato (you have to squeeze before throwing so it is less of a weapon) people threw these at each others’ faces anyway. someone poured tomatoes down my pants and shirt, and every guy thought it would be funny to smash juice in every girl’s hair. Soon enough you’re ankle deep in tomato and you wonder if you will ever make it out alive.

Once you escape, you have a few options to get clean. Option 1 is to run to the river, which is what me and a few other friends did. The hoses near the river broke at some point so a lot of people had no other option but to beg locals to spray them down. I think this is the true tradition… but it’s really easy to be stuck for several hours with no chance of rinsing off, covered in tomatoes in 90/30+ degree heat. One of my friends was this unlucky… it looked miserable.

One silver lining of the day was that some of the homeless in the area were able to take discarded tomato clothes, wash them, and keep them for themselves. If anyone who is going reads this, it might be nice to bring an extra sandwich or pair of socks and shoes to give away.

Many of my girlfriends were still pulling tomato out of their hair days later. It’s seriously. the. worst. Glad I crossed it off the list though?