One Place, Two Experiences

Friday, 3rd of March:

La Rioja is formed by seven valleys, each of them is crossed by a river that ends up in the north in the river Ebro. The river which gave „La Rioja“ its name, is the one the most in the west, called „Río Oja“.

onlyIn this valley there is a village with the Basque name „Ezcaray“, which is located nearby the only skiing area in whole La Rioja: „Valdezcaray“. I went there two times, having two wonderful, but different days:

First day in Valdezcaray, 11th February:

I was pretty surprised when I heard about the skiing area here in La Rioja and since it is just a small teritorry, I didn’t expect it to be well-attended. For sure, you can imagine my face when I saw the mount of people coming to the valley „Oja-Tirón“ at nine o’clock in the morning, having the same intention as the four of us (my host-mother, my two younger host-cousins and I). Even though we arrived before the opening of the skiing area, we hardly got a parking lot, let alone equipment for skiing. We were lucky to get the last helmets, so that finally, two lines up and three hours after our arrival, we were able to go skiing. It was a the day for sking: warm weather, sun and blue sky. Even though it was the only second time, Julia and Pablo were doing this sport, they did pretty well and we had a wonderful day together. But nevertheless the tickets were way too expensive for the four hours we could enjoy them, so I was promised to return another day…

Second day in Valdezcaray, 1st March:

This time I went to Valdezcaray with Inés‘ uncle to go snowboarding. I have practised snowbording just once one day, before we had all the trouble with Covid-19 and I wasn’t good at it. Since, on the one hand, my last attempt was more than three years ago and on the other hand, I love trying new stuff, I decided to give it a new try. Fernando (the uncle) is also about to learn snowboarding, so that we were on the same level after he had taught me the basics. Surprisingly, I learnt really fast and after a few hours of practise, I could even ride down the red slope. Unfortualtely, this day was cold and cloudy, but in return, the day before our visit it had snowed in upper part of the valley, which brought us in the best mood to start our adventure and the ideal conditions to exercise the winter sport. Afterwards I can tell, it was absolutely worth it. I really enjoyed the day and was so tired, that I barely could stay awake in the car! 

Franzi