Valencia, Fagnatics and Camp Shanty.

The circus that is SiroWak 2008 rolled into Valencia after traversing the vast sparce aridity that is central Spain. On our approach we passed the town of Buno, the future site of La Tomatina, and upon inspection declared it to be a cross between a spaghetti western ghost town and a Siberian Gulag, and it required a yogic stretch of the imagination to envisage the words biggest Guzpacho being created there in three days time by 40 000 sangria’d up human catapults. It was about a 20 minute drive into Valencia, and despite our intention to avoid Spain’s third biggest city it sucked us in, forcing us to admire the square blocks of commerce and habitation that prompted me to remark that if La Tomatina wasn’t on I would have spun around and headed back to Madird with all her feminine wonders, but we had three days and there were tomatoes to be thrown so we made a beeline south to the national park and long beaches of El Saler.

Down the beach we peeled our eyes off the many assembled bare bosoms to take advantage of a small wind swell that had been whipped up for our body surfing pleasure, and I even grabbed my board and paddled into a few before the salty bath that is the Med this time of year ripped two stitches from my feet and caused a premature shred stick retirement. An inspection of the local campsite found it to be bizarrely consecutively shithouse and expensive and it wasn’t until a few pensive roses prompted an adventurous pisser to go bush that we found the site of the future Camp Shanty, our home for the next few nights. Once we erected the tents the sound of thumping techno came alluringly wafting on the breeze and with a renewed spring in our step we skipped our way to the town square, intent on cutting some shapes. There we found an open air foam party with an age range of 8 – 14 and 50 – 87, a melangerie of smooth hairless skin and saggy hairless skin, which disappointed us to such a degree that we made our retreat but not until Ring-a-ding and Lunatic made a shirtless foray only to be taunted henceforth with allegations of prepubescent groping, I still believe they at least had that intention.

We day tripped the next couple of days into Valencia proper and after the East German reception we received on the way in it was refreshing to discover an absolutely stunning city centre. Valencia proper is what used to be the old wall city, and within its now arbitrary walls remains many delightful curches and official buildings, dating from some time ago, the actual details of which I have no intention of discovering being my contentness with the place just looking nice and the buildings being big and aesthetically pleasing. Get off my back. What remains of the old wall are two giant gates and just on the outside of them is the long diverted river which is now green space for the cities inhabitants and a museum district where different museums compete for architectural bizzareness, star wars helmets and conch shells in white and containing various curios from all around the world.

Have you ever seen the film Dawn of the Dead? Or Night of the Living Dead? Where your hero protagonist finds him or herself in a seemingly deserted city when they come across some human looking but obviously inhumane monster who tries to abduct them, a situation which is avoided but then repeated en-masse the further the hero protagonist gets into the city until they find themselves being accosted on all sides by an absolute sea of monsters, dribbling, slurring, decaying beasts who want to latch onto the hero and either eat their brain or at least just chew their ear….? Well I lived that nightmare in Valencia the night before La Tomatina in the old town. On our approach I noticed a couple of people sporting a yellow shirt, the tell tale marking of a Fanatic. The Fanatics are a tour operator that specialises in sending packs of Australian youths into foreign cities in spectacularly large groups, the rationale being that Australians should only ever mingle with other Australians and that a cultural experience while overseas is a threatening thing and measures must be put into place to avoid interaction with foreigners. On this night in Valencia 1400 Aussies drank, spewed and fought their way to alienating any antipodeans from the locals, and for that Fanatics I say thanks.