Google’s Street View team does an awesome job in getting just about everywhere these days, from the Great Barrier Reef to the top of Mount Fuji to inside the world’s largest passenger plane.
However, a somewhat brave attempt to offer stay-at-home travelers an immersive view of one of the world’s most bizarre festivals ended in failure this week when the camera-equipped car ended up being overrun by revelers. Oh, and tomatoes, too.
Yes, this was La Tomatina, an annual event in the town of Buñol in eastern Spain that sees some 30,000 people from around the world hitting the streets with the sole intention of laying waste to 150 tons of tomatoes.
Google told Gizmodo that the initial plan had been to arrive at the fruit-based festival after it’d finished to capture what presumably would’ve been some rather striking images of bright red pulp-covered streets.
However, the Street View team somehow turned up early and before they could say, “Isn’t the tomato actually a vegetable?” they suddenly found themselves right in the thick of it with no way out.
Any hope of grabbing some incredible panoramic imagery was abruptly squashed by festival goers jumping onto the car (for “tactical advantage” in the mass brawl, apparently) and damaging the camera, though let’s be honest, any captured images would’ve likely come with an Instagram-style “tomato filter “showing little more than seeds and a blotchy red fog.
Check out the car in the middle of the crowd – it clearly stood no chance. While the attempt by Street View to capture La Tomatina was definitely a brave one, it’s probably led the team to discard any plans it may have had to drive with the bulls.
