Chris Winning
Bunol, Spain - Tens of thousands of revellers packed into this normally quiet Spanish town on Wednesday to hurl 125 tonnes of ripe tomatoes at one another - in what is probably the world's biggest annual food fight.
For one hour from the stroke of midday, seven truckloads of the vegetable were splattered on chests and pelted in the faces of locals and tourists alike.
From a balcony, the elderly founders of the "Tomatina" festival gazed down at what - according to local legend - they started as a prank more than half a century ago.
Francisco Garces said that in 1946, he and friends were bored by the annual balloon festival in Bunol, a small town in the Valencia region - and decided to bring one down with a flying tomato.
"So we threw some and a balloon came down," Garces said.
In the streets below, an estimated 35 000 people - many of whom had been partying non-stop since the previous day - honoured the tradition in a frenzy of flying tomatoes.
Other versions of the origins of the Tomatina include a food fight at a dinner of two local families that got out of control - and an attack with tomatoes on musicians during a fiesta.
Whatever its roots, the Tomatina is now firmly established as one of Spain's most popular fiestas, attracting none of the controversy of other festivals that involve the slaughter of bulls, or mistreatment of other animals.
"It was pretty good - but painful," said a Japanese woman tourist, looking a bit dazed and wiping tomato juice from her eye as the fighting subsided.
A local man praised the thousands of tourists taking part for observing the practice of piercing the skin of their missiles before throwing them, ensuring a fine splat rather than a thud on impact.
"The foreigners are throwing better this year," the man said, wiping red juice and seeds off his bare chest.
Even so, doctors had to bandage the head of a woman with blood pouring down her face and at least two other people needed treatment for cuts.
With the last tomato thrown, town workers and volunteers began the task of sweeping and mopping the streets, smelling as if they had been washed with gazpacho, the pungent Spanish soup made from tomatoes.
Tomatina experts said the festival remained secretive and low-key during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. But after Franco died in 1975, the fiesta exploded in popularity. Wednesday's crowd was the biggest ever, town officials said. - Reuters