IT IS A bloodbath. Tourists, jammed like sardines in alleyways and backstreets, are lambs to the slaughter.
There is no escaping the dead-eyed aim of attackers whose missiles rip through the air above them before finding their target and exploding in crimson fury, leaving victims covered in gore, red oozing from every pore. And seeds.
Few events are as much filthy fun as Valencia’s La Tomatina, the world’s biggest food fight, which takes place at the end of August every year in Buñol.
There are, to be sure, a million more productive purposes to which the region’s surplus crop could be put. But, just as music is the food of love, rotten tomatoes are the food of fights, so really the locals are only doing what comes naturally.
And what could be more cathartic than to pelt tens of thousands of your fellow street fighters with the fruit (or is it vegetable) of your own labours?
Banned under Franco, La Tomatina came back with, er, relish after his death and is now the highlight of a week-long fiesta.
There are rules; you must squash your tomato before throwing it and nothing but tomatoes can be thrown.
Moreover, after exactly one hour a klaxon sounds and citizens must lay down their arms. The fire trucks then move in to hose the streets to the point that within minutes it’s as if the entire event were a bizarre figment of your imagination.
www.latomatina.es