The Cipotegato
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Every August 27th in the Spanish town of Tarazona, the streets erupt into glorious chaos as El Cipotegato makes his grand appearance—dressed like a medieval jester in yellow, red, and green, and sprinting for his life through a storm of tomatoes. As the town clock strikes noon, this masked local hero bursts out of the city hall and into the Plaza de España, while an army of tomato-wielding revelers chases him through the city in a ritual that’s equal parts historic, hysterical, and high-speed food fight.
Declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest, El Cipotegato is not just a tradition—it’s a badge of honor, a rite of passage, and a test of tomato-dodging agility. Legends swirl around its origins: a royal prank, a tomato-hurling pardon for prisoners, or even a Corpus Christi cat-skin scarecrow. But no matter the backstory, what’s guaranteed is a messy, marvelous spectacle where only the swift—and slippery—triumph.
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Image by - Image by Neva Micheva, CC BY-SA 3.0