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 Travel & Outdoors | August 2006 
Spaniards Ready for Tomato-Throwing Free For All
 AFP
| | Revellers at the 2005 "Tomatina" in Bunol. Some 40,000 Spaniards were gathering in the eastern Spanish town to hurl some 100,000 kilograms (220,000 pounds) of tomatoes at one another to mark the 2006 version of one of the world's messiest festivals. (AFP/Jose Jordan) |
Some 40,000 Spaniards were gathering in the eastern town of Bunol ready to create a 'human gazpacho,' hurling some 100,000 kilograms (220,000 pounds) of tomatoes at one another to mark La Tomatina, surely one of the world's messiest festivals.
Madcap fans from around the world converge on the normally sleepy town on the last Wednesday of August, many clad in waterproof capes to stave off the onslaught of juice and pulp in a manic free-for-all believed to have begun life as an argument between two carnival participants in 1945.
In keeping with local tradition local people and tourists join the fun and games from midday, when five lorries groaning under the weight of tomatoes move into place in the central plaza of the town just outside Valencia.
That is the signal for participants to hurl fruit at anything that moves and everybody gets drenched in the process.
The rules say the tomatoes have to be squashed up a little before they are thrown to make them all the squishier.
After pelting each other for an hour revellers jump in a nearby river to clean themselves while the fire brigade hose down the streets.
So popular is the event, which reputedly sprang from the ire of a would-be local serenader whose lute-playing found scant favour with residents, that Spanish authorities have recognised it as a "festival of international tourist interest". |
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