September 3, 2006: Tomatina 2006
 

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By now, IotD readers know the deal with this annual feature. Every year in Buñol, Spain, tens of thousands of people gather in the streets.

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Trucks filled with 100,000 kilos of ripe tomatoes enter. Guys in the trucks whip tomatoes at the crowd.

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After one truck things aren't really going full force yet.

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But once they have enough fruit, the streets are loaded with 4-6" of ammo. The crowd goes nuts, hucking all those tomatoes at each other in a massive food fight.

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And pretty soon everything is red.

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Such as Brit tourists, prepared for the ride.

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In some areas, the runoff of pulp and juice gets quite deep. And apparently the fight is exhausting.

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And of course it'll get in your hair.

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Three ways to clean up: you can stand in front of a firehose.

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You can head to the local car wash.

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Or, a local stream provides some help.

This year some of the above shots are wire service, but the more real images come from Flickr shots... in the case of the Flickr bits I've asked the people their permission to repost their shots. Spain Dad is the gent with tomato in his hair, and his blog's Aug. 30 2006 entry also contains a YouTube video where he describes the whole scene. Others come from Flickr user ruster who is...

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...happy to have nailed some British tourists.

Absolute best way to get rid of that skunk smell.

And too much damn fun, I'm sure.

How do they get the streets clean after that?!

Fire department hoses the buildings and the streets. :D
I wonder if along the stream and the path to it, sprout wild tomato plants?

I wonder if tomato is good for you hair?

What a waste of good food.


Feed the world!

It was my thought as well. Why couldn't those visiting Brit tourists have fought with something like Marmite instead, which would not have been missed?

I reckon this is safer than the bull running deal.

Why don't we (U.S.) ever have fun shit like this? Of course there IS the Mardis Gras.

Was.

You know, you're absolutely right. I am more than willing to do my part by slurping the juice out of the navels of a couple of those digital camera toting girls writhing in the 'mater sludge, there.

You are a good Samaritan, you are.

Why not throw tomatoe shaped rocks at each other?

The results would be similar, but lot more interesting.

Too hard to clean up. ;)