Flashback #3 La Tomatina

We smelled them first. The odour was of Spanish tomatoes, long past appetising and slightly pungent. The atmosphere had reached boiling point at this stage and the 120 000 kilograms of off-fruit could not come any sooner. For half an hour we had been squeezed and squashed in the cobbled streets of Bunyol in Spain. We had arrived on a rowdy bus from Valencia, in high spirits in anticipation of the looming anarchy. The revelers assembled in the middle of the town on the middle of a hill and we weaved our way towards the centre. The people on their balconies sprayed us with water as we soaked up the energy of the rowdy morning. Making our way to the town centre we soon hit a wall of bodies and could go no further. The majority of the crowd was boisterous groups of Spanish men, giddy for the impending brawl. Scattered amongst them were the tourists who, like us, had come a long way to be involved in the world's biggest food fight first hand. We made four - Steve, Gavin, Gregg and myself. We adjusted our goggles. We checked out the crowd. We were ready. The festive, sing-a-long environment of waterbombs and chants escalated into something more hostile as the wait went on. The mob throbbed and thrashed and grew bigger and bigger. There was soon no way out as more and more people arrived pushing forward and trapping us. We were alright, we were four guys, but you could see and feel the terror on the girls faces around us. The smiles turned to frowns as they were pushed a little too hard, and the frowns into screams as a push turned into a fondle and the screams into shrieks as the fondle turned into their entire shirt getting ripped off.
You know those old videos of the Beatles in America in the '60s and those teenage girls fainting in the front row. The delirium was kind of like that, it just wasn't the good kind.
I was too pre-occupied with not spilling my bottle of Don Simon sangria to protect anyone but myself and the truth is that it soon turned into a matter of self-preservation. Our group got split in two as the tide of hooligans washed us apart. We merged and ambraced our own inner hooligans. The crowd grew anxious and angry, I grew anxious and angry, and soon discarded wet t-shirts were being used as practice missiles. You could sense the mayhem, disorder and anarchy rising. Somewhere a girl screamed. Somewhere closer a girl screamed louder. Somewhere else a girl got kicked in the head. Another girl, who moments earlier was a postcard of festive ecstasy, was crying and retreating. This can't be legal! we shouted at each other in between gulps of warm sangria.

But then the stench came. The wait was over. The riot had just begun. As the trucks pushed through the 40 000 people in one street there was nowhere to go but further into the person next to you and the peson next to you, further into you. It was a battle to breathe as my rib cage compressed further. I braced myself and flexed everything I had. That didn't help at all. As the trucks brushed past us, the minions on top of the trucks pelted us with the over-ripe tomatoes. My arms were stuck by my side, my face a free target and as a tomato smashed into me and blurred up my goggles, I had a moment of clear thought and was amused that we had all chosen this. Then the panic of battle took over and I thought nothing. Once the truck got past we swelled back into the open street, picked up the tomatoes stuck to our bodies or on the floor and bombarded everyone and anyone. I discarded my goggles and immediately got hit directly on the eyeball with a full tomato. The sting of the hit energised me. Ten, maybe fifteen trucks went by. Each dumping the excess tomatoes onto the street at the end. The pandemonium went on for fifteen minutes. It was a hilarious free-for-all that ended with us covered head-to-toe in a basic pasta sauce.

For the next hour we basked in the aftermath and walked the streets splashing in the knee-deep river of red fruit. Our group rendezvoused at the bar in the middle of the street party, we found some drinks and continued the party that would end much much later on a beach in Valencia. None of us could bare the smell of tomatoes for months afterwards, and to this day the sight of a squashed tomato evokes the memory of that glorious day, something inside of me stirs, I scope out my surroundings searching for a perfect, unsuspecting target and then I take aim.

Waka waka Norway

I booked the flight on the Monday. I flew on the Wednesday. To Norway. To Bergen. To a town with whale meat in the fish market, brown cheese in the supermarkets and where, a few years ago, there was 85 days of consecutive rain. The people say that is normal.

I swapped planes in Oslo. I forgot my baggage on the turnstile. I was in disarray because I realised I had double booked the flight. I arrived in Bergen. The lack of baggage made it easier to wonder the streets looking for a place to stay in the dark light of a dwindling evening. Preparation, as they say, is a hinderance and a nuisance to spontaneity, adventure and peace of mind.

I found a hostel. A friend found me on facebook. She is a local. She told me to go out to a club with her. She said she would introduce me to all her friends, and buy me drinks, and pick me up in five minutes. I said yes.
We went out to a club and she got me drinks and introduced me to her friends and explained the social nuances of Bergen. The people are shy she said, they treat friendliness with scepticicm and binge drink as a social lubricant she explained. I understand I said. Her friends said where are you from? I said South Africa. They said waka waka.
Why did you come to Norway they said. For the rain I said. And the whale meat.

At the end of the night in the kebab shop she said you can sleep on my couch until you find a place, that hostel is expensive. We will find you a job and an apartment and you will like Bergen. Thank you I said.

She gave me a sheet for the couch and a phone and a sim card and scrambled eggs and rolls on a plate waiting for me on the kitchen counter in the morning and lasagne at night. She was the kryptonite to my unorganisation.

We have to find you a job she said. Go to Finnegan's, the Irish Bar, there is a guy from South Africa there, speak to him she said. I went. He asked me what I wanted. I said a job. You can start tonight he said.

Three days later I moved into an apartment in the centre of town. This is easy I said.

Au 'voir Antibes

Days in France: 62
Days worked: 25
Days dockwalking: 1
Days on the beach: 27

Those figures about sum it up. The work, of course, was on yachts. Some days I worked in Monaco, others in Cannes, others in Antibes. The vague plan at the beginning of it all was to serve champagne to the rich and famous on these mythical superyachts and retire after a month to afford my own yacht. This didn't quite happen. Roman Abromovich was indifferent to my arrival and didn't send in a specific request for my services. I admit that this is not surprising, and in fact sensible, considering my service abilities. I ended up having a few days work here and there and one 10 day charter I have already written about.
There is much commotion about the easy money and fancy lifestyle involved with these superyachts. The lifestyle is fancy and the money is easy but it leaves a funny taste in one's mouth. I am not anti-money but there is something sordid about it all. Especially the way in which it affects people. It must be said that the yachting industry is an alluring one but bare in mind that it can attract a special breed of asshole. (That is just a sweeping generalisation and should not be paid much attention, unless, of course you are considering going into the industry because then it is very relevant.)

The South of France is a dazzling and impressive place, rich with the legends of Brigitte Bardot and St. Tropez, the world's most beautiful women on the world's most expensive super yachts, the Grimaldi family and the Monaco casino. The region is dripping with wealth. The mind boggles at the amount of money and the value of the yachts from St. Tropez to Monaco, a mere 80 km stretch. The money falls though the cracks and people like myself are here to pick it up.

The work was uninspiring. Mopping decks, polishing steel, scrubbing the hull and ensuring that everything was spotless, as clean as it was before cleaning even started. The tediousness of it all was not an issue. Just make sure it shines. I almost enjoyed the rhythm of it but despised the futility.

Like other places, though, the work was never the main attraction. I work to live, I don't live to work and especially if that work involves waxing, polishing or scrubbing. The attraction was meeting up with old friends, lapping up the back end of the European summer and trying out something new.

My chief residence was at the crewhouse in Antibes. The crewhouse is a permanent hostel for yachties that sees some of the workers pass through for a few days while others stay for the entire season. It was a gold-mine for jobs, parties and discarded clothes.

Jobs
Due to the nature of the crewhouse alot of work came through that was easy to pick up. The trick was simply to be there at the right time. All the work I got came throught the crewhouse, either from the manager who I tried to charm everyday so she would favour me and the other guys that stayed there that knew of work going. I ended up attempting the dreaded dockwalking (when you walk along the docks and approach the different yachts unsolicited) for only one day in Cannes, unsuccessfully. The work was mind-numbing but the food was possibly fantastic. Some boats had chefs that spoiled their crews with a variety of dishes with salads, chicken pies, prawns and ribs not out of place. After eating fishfingers and rice for three months in Greece this was a welcome and revolutionary treat.

Parties


There were about forty of us staying in the crew house and it was a mixing pot of nationalities and personalities. Mostly antipodean and British, some of the people were focused on finding permanent jobs and didn't get too sidetracked while most had the typical yachtie mentality of work hard and play hard. I've never seen this mantra so exposed as it is in the yachting industry. These guys work for three months straight without a break like dogs and then have three days before another spell. This tiny break in an otherwise hectic work schedule is inevitably a massive binge.

If these binges are lucky it will be over the weekend. Friday was always the biggest night, with much of this attibuted to the phenomenal foam parties that took place every Friday in Antibes. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I remember saying on my way to the party the first time I went "I hope it's one of those cool foam parties and not a lame one, you know, the ones where it is mad and the foam comes up to your thighs". It was mad, very mad. Picture this. As you enter the club there is a glass-walled shower on your left and a long bar on your right. Straight ahead is a sunken dance floor with stairs leading down evoking a sense of a pool. The pool/dancefloor is surrounded by dancing cages on either side and in the middle of the ceiling above the dancefloor is a contraption that looks like a washing machine minus the door. Out of this hole pours an intermittent pillar of foam that people throw themselves through. It is a bubble waterfall of fun that everyone splashes and sploshes and spins around in. The foam beams out at such a pace that in a few wet moments the foam has filled up the entire dancefloor and rising. Up to your waste and rising, up to your chest and still rising, up to your neck and you are starting to worry but you are having too much fun and then you lose sight of the exit and you're in it, completely immersed. You flail around and catch someone's face and pull them closer and it's Dan from the crewhouse, "I can't see" you scream, "Neither can I" he laughs. As fun as it was it had a slight danger to it. The first time we went a girl jumped off the stage and slipped on the soapy floor, went under for fifteen seconds and reappeared on the other side of the dancepool with a cut warranting eight stitches in her head. The next time we went, a girl fell backward and broke her shoulder. It is rough out there. What makes it more interesting is that it was at the only gay club in town, Cleopatra. On Fridays they put the homosexuality on standby as the heterosexuals invaded their space. There was also a free buffet of ribs, chicken pieces and hotdogs throughout all of this. It is hands down the best party I have ever been to.

Discarded clothes

I like and need to travel light. At the beginning of summer I got rid of all my winter clothing bar one hoody which I promptly lost. Six months later, with winter approaching and a limited clothing budget, fate intervened. I was looking for a lost t-shirt in the lost property when the manager of the crewhouse said I could take whatever I found because it was going to waste. I found a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, three t-shirts, two hoodies and a Tommy Hilfiger rugby shirt. Sweet sweet karma.

Highlights of France were going to Italy for the day, the Monaco Boat Show, losing big in the casinos and David Guetta and Tiesto in Nice. The rest of the days were dedicated to the beach, drinking cheap rose wine, reading magazines and books, chatting and almost always accompanied with a mango and lemon icecream. My feet would of been perpetually sandy if it were not for the pebbles. But the days of sun and sea are over now as I am going to wash away it all with a stint in the wettest region of Norway where it rains for 275 days of the year, just to balance things out a bit.