Spanish town holds tomato fight

By BERNAT ARMANGUE
Associated Press Writer
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AP Photo/BERNAT ARMANGUE
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BUNOL, Spain (AP) -- Tens of thousands of warriors for a day hurled
tons of ripe tomatoes at each other Wednesday in an annual food fight
that transforms this Spanish town into a sea of red mush.

On the cue of a rocket fired from town hall, municipal trucks hauled
117 tons of plum tomatoes into the main square and dumped them,
setting the stage for one hour of good-natured warfare.

"It has been great, excellent, crazy, fantastic," said Alan Doyle, 21,
of Dublin, Ireland, who was attending the festival called the Tomatina
for the first time.

"It's like a mosh pit in a rock concert; you just keep going," he
said. "The street was like a red river."

A second rocket signaled it was time to cease hostilities, and Bunol
residents used garden hoses to spray down the tomato tossers and the
rest of the town.

The event has its roots in a food fight between childhood friends and
has become something of a calling card for Bunol, which is 25 miles
north of Valencia on Spain's east coast.

The Tomatina is held each year on the last Wednesday in August.

The festival draws tens of thousands of revelers from around Spain and
abroad, including Japan, Australia and the United States. An estimated
40,000 people took part this year.

Doyle, who serves in the army in Ireland, learned about the festival
while vacationing in Spain and did not want to miss it. "I recommend
it to everyone who wants to have a great time," he said. "I'll
definitely come back."

Local legend holds that the event began in the mid-1940s after a group
of youngsters waged a food fight near a vegetable stand on the town
square. They met again the next year and pelted each other - and
passers-by - to start the annual tradition.

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