Google Street View cars have been spotted all over the world, sometimes with amusing results as people either ham for the camera, or get caught doing something they shouldn’t. In Spain, the search engine giant has been busy capturing some of the most iconic historic sites for their Google maps system, including the famous Alhambra, a Moorish palace near Granada in southern Spain.
They even recently used the backpack version of their fancy 360-degree camera to take people on a virtual tour of Spain’s most dangerous footpath, “El Caminito del Rey,” allowing viewers to experience the hair-raising pathway from the comfort of their own homes.
However, this week Google went a bit too far when they decided it would be a good idea to capture images of the crazy tomato throwing festival in Buñol in eastern Spain and they soon regretted their decision.
To celebrate “La Tomatina,” a huge truck of soft, ripe tomatoes is driven into the town and people then start madly throwing them at each other until their clothing and bodies are soon covered in red slime. The streets literally flow with the resulting tomato juice, and everyone has the most marvelous time.
Even though the town last year decided to limit the number of visitors to the festival, there were still around 22,000 people, both locals and visitors from 96 different countries, in town on Wednesday for the crazy event.
Google told the Local that they thought the worst of the festival was over when they drove their Google Street View car, complete with expensive and hi-tech 360-cameras, into the streets of Buñol. At first, things appeared to be quiet and they started collecting images of the aftermath of “La Tomatina.”
According to the Mail Online, what they didn’t realize was there were still plenty of revelers around who were still in the same crazy party mood. Their car was soon engulfed and covered in tomatoes. People then started climbing on to the Google Street View car itself, damaging the side mirrors, windscreen wipers and even the (probably very expensive) cameras. The result can be seen below.
The company’s spokesman said, “Unfortunately, there were still some people around when we arrived with the car, which ended up trapped in the crowd and suffered quite a bit of damage.” Judging from the photo, this sounds like an understatement.
According to the Inquisitr, Google is still investigating the incident and their spokesman said they were relieved no one was hurt in the incident.
It is unclear at present whether the Google Street View cameras caught anything worth using on the Google Maps system, due to the damage caused by the revelers.
To get an idea of how crazy the streets of Buñol were during the “La Tomatina” festival, a video showing images of the crazy event can be seen below. Regrettably that photographer didn’t capture the attack on the Google Street View car!