Basque Rural Sports “Herri Kirolak”

The Alboka

Basque Rural Sports “Herri Kirolak”

The Montaña Alavesa is a mountainous and sparsely populated region in the southern reaches of Alava.  It is home to a couple of thousand people scattered around the numerous little villages.  These villages have changed little in the last few hundred years and you might think that not much happens in these parts.  But where […]

The Alboka

In the small, sleepy, Alaves village of Otazu you can occasionally hear the curiously mournful sound of the Alboka.  The Alboka is a uniquely Basque instrument which sounds a little like a sharper version of the Scottish pipes. In the shade of some chestnut trees you can find Osses’s Alboka workshop.  Osses has dedicated the […]