(Images via: World Nomads, Valencia Trader and the Sydney Morning Herald)
Once a year, tens of thousands of tourists gather in a town in Spain to hurl over one hundred tons of overripe tomatoes … all in just one hour. When the festival is called to a halt fire houses are used to clean the streets as well as the participants. For this brief but amazing food fight the size of the town quadruples, drawing visitors from all over the world to participate in the largest spaghetti sauce bath of all time.
(Images via: Funny Mos, Ifood, Espacio Blog and Wayfaring)
Participants in La Tomatina are encouraged to wear safety gear such as goggles and forbidden to bring anything that could be used as an actual weapon into the fray. Nonetheless, clothing is typically torn and outfits are trashed within the brief free-for-all hour of the main event. Strangely enough, though, the acidity of the tomatoes renders the ground underneath essentially clean once the tomatoes are washed away.
In recent years the festival has become such a phenomenon that parties surrounding it start up to a week early and participants in many cases must stay multiple towns away from Bunol – and may have trouble getting into the middle of the tamato fight itself once it starts on the narrow streets of the town. Strangely, no one is quite certain how the festival started decades ago though theories abound as to its origins. For a more extended peak check out the SciFi Channel’s feature on the festival.
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13 Comments
August 31st, 2008 at 11:34 am
fuckin awesome.. wanna go!
August 31st, 2008 at 9:45 pm
cool
September 1st, 2008 at 2:53 am
Such decadent waste of food when millions die starving..
September 1st, 2008 at 5:00 am
who knows the smell..
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 am
wow i saw the first picture and was sure it was a pile of dead bodies.
crazy good post!
September 11th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I’d love to check it out it looks like so much fun. Imagine how much tomatoes they would have to use!
November 24th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Best time of my life.
Make sure to have some clean shoes, or you can’t get on the rail back to Valencia
November 30th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Looks very interesting. it is good to see some non-violent fight.
February 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 am
wow, looks odd. I think it would totally reek of rotten tomatoes. Imagine getting that smashed in your face!!! Ewwwwww……..
February 27th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Crazy!
Justin u’re the man.
Millions children die starving and you wasting food.
I guess u dont care bout human being. The food they waste in tha kind of game can save thousands of children or just put smiles on they’re faces for while.
You can have fun because you work hard and you deserve it, but don’t play with food.
Please
You are intelligents
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