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WORLDWIDE 2004
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TRAVEL CULTURE
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TOMATO FIGHT
text + images: steve davey destination: buñol/spain
redfaces festivalof
Steve Davey gets splattered at Spain’s La Tomatina festival, the biggest food fight in the world.
S
OMETIMES YOU HEAR ABOUT something that is so stupid, so pointless, that you just have to go and see it. La Tomatina is one such thing. Billed as the world’s largest tomato fight, it takes place every year in the village of Buñol in Spain. In just under one hour a crowd of over 35,000 people pelt some 125,000 kilos of tomatoes at each other for no better reason than to have a bit of fun. On the last Wednesday of every August, crowds gather in the early hours. Throngs of people arrive from nearby Valencia, most settling down to the serious business of drinking because, lets face it, no-one has a gigantic tomato fight sober. The festive food fight happens in the Plaza del Pueblo, the main ‘square’, which is actually just a wide main street. Along balconies and roofs locals overlook the streets below, which are packed with combatants, TV cameras and curious onlookers. Sheets of plastic coat buildings like some conceptual art installation.
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In the centre of the street is a raised platform, enclosed with a wire cage. With less than an hour to go, two people inside the cage turn fire hoses on the crowd, soaking everybody and people on the balconies start throwing buckets of water. While the intention is probably to douse anyone suffering in the hot August sun, they instead whip the crowd into an expectant frenzy. There are but a few rules for La Tomatina: no ripping of clothes, squash tomatoes before throwing them and no throwing after the last rocket signals the end of the fight. Needless to say there are plenty of idiots from the international backpacker brigade who ignore the traditions of the festival. At one point three locals bemoan not the fact that their fiesta is so popular – Buñol takes a great civic pride in the numbers who travel to their town for La Tomatina – but the fact that a minority of outsiders won’t play by the rules, ruining it for all. Now the place is packed. Moving a few feet takes a lot of squeezing through wet bodies.
get in the know! The first legal Tomatina was in 1950, but it was then banned until 1957 when the civic authorities legalised it
www.getlostmag.com section: get festive!
Billedas the world’s largest tomato fight,it takes place every year in the village of Buñol, near Valencia, in Spain. get in the know! Tomatoes were first provided for ‘throwers’ by La Tomatina festival organisers in 1975
opposite: Every year the 10,000 people who live in Buñol village find that their population has quadrupled overnight as a multitude of frolicsome ritualists turn up to fling and lob tomatoes just for the hell of it. above: Wear old clothes, bring heaps of tomatoes and a mask or goggles to protect your eyes.
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text + images: steve davey destination: buñol/spain
right: Get the right day! Tomato trigger-happy participants have only two hours in which to hurl fruit and then the town returns to its sleepy self. below left: Revellers wait for the tomatoes to flow. below right: Enjoy a post festival drink in the main square.
The action has taken two hours and some30 tonsof tomatoes have been reduced to red slurry thatis over a footdeep inplaces. As 11 o’clock approaches, the crowd revs up and a rocket is fired, signalling the beginning of the famous La Tomatina. A truck pulls into the street. It moves slowly but inexorably through the crowds, its juggernaut cargo loaded high on the back. Locals in fancy dress, known as
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‘instigators’, sit atop the tray, which is packed with ripe tomatoes. They pelt the crowd. People try to get onto the truck, keen to score their own ammunition. Halfway down the street the truck stops and the dumper slowly tilts up. Tons of tomatoes fall out onto pavement.
The mob closes in and the pile is quickly shredded and flung around the street. Wherever tomatoes fall they are picked up and flung further. A flurry of red radiates from the truck. Some people pick out targets, others throw wildly adding to the one-colour melee. The rich smell of tomato fills the square, as well as the ears, eyes and mouths of the crowd. Those wearing swim goggles are feeling smug. When all of the tomatoes have been pureed, the truck lowers the dumper and drives tortuously away. Everyone listens out for the rumble of the next delivery. It soon noses into the square and the frenzy ensues again. In a lull between trucks I elbow my way to a sheltered enclosure. The fire hoses still play on the crowd, goading them to pelt the cage. Nearby, a couple of people are getting first aid and a photographer is trying to dry his camera out in the exhaust of the generators powering the fire hoses.
get in the know! More than 90,000 pounds of squashed tomatoes are used between 11am and 1pm
below: Get wet! Fire hoses spray the crowd clean at the end of festive throwing.
FRANCE
la tomatina
barcelona
madrid
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
buñol (bunyol) valencia
After the last truck has left the square a rocket blast signals the end of La Tomatina for yet another year. The action has taken under two hours and some 30 tons of tomatoes have been reduced to a red slurry that is over a foot deep in places. The clean up begins. Plastic sheets come down from buildings and streets are hosed down. Thirty minutes later it’s hard to believe that La Tomatina ever happened, except for a straggling line of tomatoencrusted revellers making their way back to the car park and railway station, big grins on their very red faces.
Getting tribal with South East Asia’s hill tribe festivals.
Rules of La Tomatina: Although it looks like anarchy, there are certain rules that the locals stick to; ignoring them is pretty rude. On the town website the town council has posted the following: • Don’t carry bottles or anything else that can cause an accident • Don’t rip t-shirts or clothes • Crush tomatoes before throwing them • Be careful of trucks carrying tomatoes • No tomatoes are to be thrown after the second rocket is fired.
Details: Buñol is 30 km inland from Valencia, Spain. La Tomatina generally happens on
the last Wednesday of August, although this sometimes changes. Check with the town council on www.lahoya.net/tomatina.
Tomatina tips: • If you are a woman, make sure that you are wearing something under your t-shirt – preferably a sports bra. Although you are not supposed to rip anyone’s clothing, someone is bound to do it. • Wear old clothes and take a change. This can be stashed in a bar or with friendly locals. • Traffic can be bad – leave plenty of time or you’ll miss the fiesta. • Swimming goggles will protect your eyes from stinging tomato juice.
get in the know! The festival coincides with peak tomato growing season in Buñol
• Take a cheap disposable waterproof camera. Anything else will get wrecked.
History of La Tomatina The festival is reputed to have originated from a near riot that started after local youths tried to take part in a civic parade. This ended up with a tomato fight, ammunition being taken from a local vegetable stall until police intervened. This near riot was not forgotten and the next year on the same Wednesday of August the youths of the town again met at the square, this time bringing their own tomatoes. And so another battle started and once again was stopped by local police. ISSUE #02 get lost! #17
text + images: david atkinson destination: bolivia/south america
BRAZIL PERU BOLIVIA valle grande
santa cruz
la higuera
PARAGUAY
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get in the know! the word ‘che’ is Latino for ‘hey you’ and ‘mate’. Some South Americans call all Argentines ‘Che’
www.getlostmag.com section: get lawless!
TRAVEL:ONTHE TRAILOFCHE In the barren backblocks of Bolivia, David Atkinson discovers the world’s most famous revolutionary is making a spirited comeback.
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EÑORA OCINAGA REMEMBERS THE day clearly: October 9, 1967. She was working her normal shift as a staff nurse at the Señor de Malta Hospital in Vallegrande when soldiers arrived with the body of a renegade fighter executed that morning. The man was laid out in the laundry, an outbuilding to the hospital, and crowds started to gather. “I cleaned his body and put him into hospital pyjamas as his own clothes were in rags,” she remembers. “He had three bullet wounds, including one to the heart, but his eyes were still open and alive. I thought he looked like Christ.” It was weeks later she learnt that the body was that of the Argentine doctor turned revolutionary, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, aka Che. This winter, the residents of Vallegrande relived that fateful night with the inauguration of Bolivia’s new Che Guevara tourism route, timed to coincide with Che’s June 14th birthday.
What’s more, with filming of the longawaited and often delayed Che Guevara biopic - starring Benicio del Toro in the title role scheduled to start shooting in the area during the forthcoming dry season, the spectre of Che will return to haunt the town once more. According to the star’s official website (www.beniciodeltoro.com), the film was
the tourist infrastructure along the trail,” explains Jacqueline Peña, who heads the project for Care Bolivia. “The idea is that funds generated will go directly into the hands of the local community and benefit over 500 Guarani families living along the route,” she adds. Now, with the deadline fast approaching,
To see it all in action, however, you’ll be needing a jeep, a guide and a sense of adventure befitting of a revolutionary leader. finally green-lighted in February this year with Steven Soderbergh in the director’s chair and a tentative release date of 2005. The Che tourism project, meanwhile, has been championed by Care Bolivia, the Santa Cruz-based branch of Care International, and has been several years in planning. “We have been working since 2001 to oversee the development of museums and improve
get in the know! Che was a great lover of chess and often had long battles against his idol and leader, Fidel Castro
they’re close to completing their aim: a working trail that follows Che’s footsteps during the last few months of his life, tracing a route through south eastern Bolivia from Santa Cruz via Vallegrande to La Higuera. To see it all in action, however, you’ll be needing a jeep, a guide and a sense of adventure befitting of a revolutionary leader. Tracing the route, we drive four hours from ISSUE #02 get lost! #27
text + images: david atkinson destination: bolivia/south america
It reads: “Che – alive as they never wanted you to be.”
Santa Cruz to Mataral, after which the road to Vallegrande branches off to a steep incline at a crossroads where a girl in ragged dress sells chewing gum and sodas to passing motorists. From Mataral the road degenerates to little more than a dusty dirt track, while the scenery changes rapidly from lush, tropical vegetation to rough scrub dotted only with cacti and the occasional roaming mule.
are now a hive of activity. Their precise whereabouts - a windy airstrip on the outskirts of Vallegrande - were only revealed in 1997. Che’s body was subsequently exhumed and returned to lie in peace in Cuba, but the site is now being prepared for a new Che museum. Pushing on along the trail from Vallegrande, it soon becomes all too
The prospect of jeep-loads of greenback-laden gringos flocking from across the globe is probably enough to have the locals locking up their daughters and reaching for their shotguns. Vallegrande itself is a typically Bolivian community with the sun-bleached fascades of colonial buildings grouped around an orderly central plaza. Overlooking the square, the Casa de Cultura contains a treasure trove of a room filled with blackand-white photos capturing the tumultuous events that changed the face of this sleepy Bolivian pueblo forever. Across town, the formerly unmarked graves where the bodies of Che and his fellow combatants were secretly dumped #28 get lost! ISSUE #02
apparent that, while Vallegrande is preparing itself as the hub for Che tourism, the other pueblos en-route are still to get in on the act. Pucara, for example, appears little more than a ghost town, while La Trigal is bereft of all life apart from a dodgy karaoke joint and some rabid-looking dogs. Stopping for coffee and water, our arrival is greeted with slack-jawed astonishment. The prospect of jeep-loads of greenbackladen gringos flocking from across the globe is probably enough to have the locals
locking up their daughters and reaching for their shotguns. For Che purists, however, the Holy Grail is a dusty village two bone-shaking hours away from Vallegrande along a rough dirt track that washes away to little more than a pot-holed mire at the first glimpse of the rainy season. It was here in La Higuera that Che was held overnight in a ramshackle schoolhouse and subsequently executed at dawn on October 9th, 1967, by US-trained Bolivian troops. Back the next day in Vallegrande we take the short stroll down the street from the hospital to where Señora Ocinaga’s family now run a sweet shop to say our goodbyes. On the way we take one last look at the laundry outhouse where the world’s media gathered to gawk at Che’s lifeless corpse. As the late afternoon sunshine glances the slab where she cleaned Che’s body that night back in 1967, one piece from the burgeoning graffiti collection around the makeshift shrine to the revolutionary cause catches my eye. It reads: “Che – alive as they never wanted you to be.”
Europe special – trailing wolves in the heart of Transylvania.
get in the know! It is said that Che had a deep oedipal complex with his mother
www.getlostmag.com section: get lawless!
MOST WANTED: OUTLAWS ON THE RUN
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New Mexico, USA
Discover the Wild West state that hosted the biggest and baddest outlaws including Billy the Kid, Jesse James and the Wild Bunch headed by Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. Check out Billy the Kid (above) at Lincoln or see where he was shot dead by famed law man Pat Garret in Fort Sumner. www.outlawtrails.com, www.newmexico.org
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Kyoto, Japan
16th Century outlaw Ishikawa Goemon became famous when he tried to assassinate Japan’s then ruler, was caught and subsequently put to death in a cauldron of boiling oil. Visit a memorial to Goemon in Nodagawa, the village of his birth, walk the banks of Sanjo river in Kyoto where he was killed or visit the Nanzenji Shrine where he is said to have hid while on the run. www.kyotoguide.com
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Nottinghamshire & Sherwood Forest , UK
Loathed by the rich, loved by the poor: legendary nice bloke Robin Hood is the most famous of England’s outlaws. Check out the secret lairs of Sherwood Forest, the medieval town of Nottingham and the outlaw’s supposed grave or visit ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, home of Robin's legendary archenemy, the abbot. www.robinhood.uk.com
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Uttar and Madhya Pradesh, India
Nicknamed ‘The Bandit Queen’, Phoolan Devi was a legendary female bandit whose career included robbery, ransom and massacre (of those who reportedly raped her). Released after eleven years imprisonment she began a political career that ended with her assassination in 2001. Check out the wild Pradesh countryside where she and her gang roamed, visit her childhood village of Gorha ka Purwa or Bhind, where she surrendered. www.tourisminindia.com
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High country, Victoria, Australia
Beechworth, Euroa, Stringybark Creek and Glenrowan are just a few of the sites where you can retrace Australia’s most famous outlaw hero, Ned Kelly. See where he was born, lived, fought, tried and the hotel where his gang made their last stand. Tours run by Beechworth Historic & Cultural Precinct. Bookings on 1300 366 321. www.visitvictoria.com
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Kaikohe/Waitangi, New Zealand
Leader, warrior and Maori hero, Hone Heke was nevertheless considered an outlaw by British forces. One of the first chiefs to sign the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, he was also the first to rebel against the Crown by cutting down the Union Jack flag. Visit Waitangi, scene of Heke’s flagpole protest, Waimate where he first met the Governor, or Kaikohe where he lived out his days. www.kaikohe.co.nz
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Chihuahua, Mexico
Visit the city made famous by Mexican outlaw and revolutionary, Poncho Villa. Tour his former home (made into a museum by his widow) and the spectacular Copper Canyon located nearby. Or dress up as one of the revolutionary’s posse for a snap-shot in front of his impressive statue in the town of Zacatecas . www.mexexperience.com
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Sicily, Italy
Head to the home of Mafia where famous Italian blackmarketeer Salvatore Giuliano championed the poor and fought for Sicilian independence. He was also involved in robbery, abduction, extortion and the murder of police agents who tracked him. Trek through the hills near his hometown of Montelepre where he smuggled goods or see the courtyard where he was shot dead in 1950 in Castelvitrano. www.bestofsicily.com
Images 1 - 8 supplied by the National Museum of Australia. See www.nma.gov.au for details of its ‘Outlawed!’ exhibition now showing. get in the know! In 1965, Che spent time in the Congo, Central Africa, fighting a revolutionary war
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www.getlostmag.com section: get listening!
thai beat
Travel inspires music. Music inspires travel. Damien McAloon unearths songs that wear their sense of place proudly on their album sleeve. First up, a postcard from Thailand courtesy of Shane MacGowan and The Pogues.
F
OR THE BEST PART OF THE 1980’s, Shane MacGowan was the singersongwriter of the folk-punk group The Pogues. The wayward but charismatic MacGowan became something of a cult figure with his poignant lyrics, formidable
1939. The accompanying film clip featured the band playing in a Thai bar, complete with a kickboxing match and a female prostitute perched on a swing. The laid-back, languid style of the tune reflects the beachside holiday that was its
era was relatively short-lived and yielded two largely forgettable albums. MacGowan released two albums of his own during the 1990's, backed by a new band named The Popes, and still tours despite ailing health. He was in Australia
Finally found a place they could never reach Sipping Singha beer on Pattaya Beach Singha beer don’t ask no questions Singha beer don’t tell no lies – Shane MacGowan drug and alcohol intake (he once said, “You don’t form a band to drink milk”) and the deteriorating state of his dental hygiene. In late 1990, The Pogues released their fifth studio album, ‘Hell’s Ditch’, to mixed reviews. It would be the band’s final album with MacGowan at the helm. Becoming increasingly estranged from other band members and with his live performances becoming more unreliable and erratic, within twelve months he would be sacked by his fellow Pogues during a Sake-sodden tour of Japan. A number of the songs penned by MacGowan on ‘Hell’s Ditch’ are set in and were inspired by Thailand, written during an extended holiday there. The first single from the album was titled ‘Summer in Siam’, the name by which Thailand was known until
backdrop. The Thailand of MacGowan’s lyrics is the ultimate escape destination: a place of indulgence on beaches and in bars and a place of stunning natural beauty, where sunsets are savoured and “the moon is full of rainbows”. Asked about his inspiration at the time, MacGowan described Thailand as his “new spiritual home” and explained that the message of ‘Summer in Siam’ was a simple one: “I’m out of my brains, I’m in Thailand and everything is in perfect harmony”. MacGowan’s other torch songs for Thailand are littered with references to Singha Beer and Mekong Whisky. They tell of meetings in bars, a case of mistaken sexual identity and “hanging out on Pattaya Beach.” For many fans, ‘Hell’s Ditch’ marked the end of The Pogues. The band’s post-MacGowan
get in the know! Before forming The Pogues, Shane MacGowan was a member of a post-punk band called the Nipple Erectors
last year for a series of gigs, making the journey with British Airways after Qantas refused to let him on a Sydney-bound flight at Heathrow Airport. He remains a favourite with the UK tabloid press, who happily fill their pages with tales of drug and alcohol excess and reports of his imminent demise. Bangkok’s Patpong Road may be a long way from the Tipperary of his youth, but MacGowan’s connection with Thailand is lasting and has been confirmed over the years by repeated visits. He describes the country as one of the few places in the world that he feels he can relax, saying in 1994: “I travel as much as I can. I’ve got a roaming spirit. I like places where the people are similar to the Irish: Thailand, Portugal, Spain. People who have a good time at any expense. I respect that.”
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