At the end of June, my wife, my daughter, and I did an ecotour of Costa Rica. We did and saw lots of awesome things, from wildlife (the goal was to find frogs and we saw a lot of them, as well as bats, tapir, monkeys, and crocodiles), whitewater rafting, ziplining, waterfalls, cocoa and coffee […]
If you go to any town in the Basque Country, you will find a plaza surrounded by a church, a bar, and a fronton. The fronton, and pelota, are a cornerstone of Basque society. Perhaps one of the most famous exports of the Basque Country is jai alai, the fastest ball game played in the […]
The American West was a strong draw for many young Basques seeking opportunity. Jordan Valley, Oregon, was one of those areas that provided opportunity for young Basques. Jordan Valley first attracted miners around 1863 when gold was discovered. The first Basques arrived soon after, in 1890, as part of the sheep industry. So many Basques […]
Anyone who has been to the Basque Country and visited any of the villages that dot the coast and the valleys between those peaks shrouded in mythology certainly knows the importance of the fronton to the Basque people. The plaza of most any town is often surrounded by the three corner-stones of Basque life: the […]
1892: Castor Uriarte Aguirreamalloa, architect and author, is born in Catabuig, Philipines. In 1937 he witnessed the German bombardment of Gernika, during which the village fronton, which he had designed, was destroyed. He later tried to get Picasso’s Guernica moved to Gernika without success.
Here are a few links I’ve run across that I thought were worth sharing. Pelota is immensely popular in Euskal Herria. Most evenings I was there, a match was being shown on the TVs of most bars. Even though cesta punta — jai alai to the rest of the world — is the most flashy […]
