Euskadi; Baraibar

The day after my sister arrived we decided to head over to Baraibar, a small town where another one of Dan's bosses owns a home. Originally we thought we might spend a night or two there, but we ended up deciding not to. Baraibar is about half way between Donostia and Iruña and is at the base of the Aralar mountain range. At first, we wanted to drive up into the mountains and go for a hike. It had snowed the night before and as we drove higher, the roads became sketchier, especially for our tiny rent-a-car. So we ended up turning around and heading back down.

Snow on the way to Baraibar

Snow and fog in the Aralar mountain range

We stopped in Baraibar and decided to do a little hike from Baraibar to the neighboring town of Iribas. It was a nice walk, pretty mellow, but the scenery was beautiful. There were cows on the trail and when we got into Iribas we met a dog who was super friendly and followed us for quite awhile he was really cute and sweet.

Church in Baraibar

Cute cow on the trail

Bear, Dan and me on the trail

After our hike, we headed back towards Getaria. We stopped off in Zarautz to have lunch and walk around a bit. Zarautz is the city to the east of Getaria, there is a nice path that goes between Zarautz and Getaria and we wanted to walk over one day, but we never made it. It was nice to stop there though and walk along the beach.

Bear and me on the beach in zarautz

After lunch we went back to Getaria and decided we hadn't had enough walking so we decided to take Erin up the Raton. It was amazing how much easier the hike up the Raton was this time compared to last time. I was definitely starting to feel a lot better.

Erin and Dan on our hike

Another rock carving on the Raton

Bear in the fort on the Raton

View from the Raton

That morning, before we left for Baraibar, we ran into Barbra, the wife of Javier who we met in Reno at the Center for Basque Studies, and she invited us over to dinner that night. They have a house in the hills just above Joseba's apartment. Their house was so neat, they are remodeling it, so only a couple of the rooms were livable and the kitchen and living room were really nice. We had a wonderful meal and conversation. It was nice having a home cooked meal and hanging out in a local atmosphere.