A friend who studies art tells me that the Oma Forest it is an intervention. I don't know much about artistic language, but maybe in the mid-80s, when Agustín Ibarrolla created this very special place, that word was not used.
Let's discover today this great destination in the the Basque Country and if we are thinking of taking a trip to Spain this summer ... how about visiting it?
Oma Forest
It is an artistic creation of the painter and sculptor Agustín Ibarrola. In Basque it is known as omako basoa and is a small forest whose trees are decorated, they have colors, which allow, depending on the place from where you stop to observe, geometric shapes and effects different, both of animals and people.
Agustín Ibarrola is an 89-year-old artist, a native of Vizcaya, whose artistic career initially opted for the constructivism. In the 60's, hectic political years, he was very active, he was a communist, and thus he was imprisoned on several occasions. He never stopped painting and this decade was leading him towards social painting. Already in the '80s he began with the works that are recognized under the name of «forests».
Within the artistic vocabulary what he did with the forest of Oma falls within the Land Art, the intervention of natural spaces. This forest It is within the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, in a beautiful area at the mouth of the Oka River, in the Busturialdea region. It has about 220 square kilometers and is very rich ecologically speaking. Here is the simple and colorful copse.
Ibarrola thought of the forest of Oma as example of the intimate relationship between man and nature. It is also known as Animated Forest and its creation occurred in the first half of the 80s. There is a total of 47 works of art between painted trees and rocks. You will see colorful animal heads, rainbows, bikers, eyes, children, horizontal lines, vertical lines, curves and diagonals, all in multiple strong colors.
To get to the forest you just have to follow the route to the Santimamiñe Cave. Access to the cave and the forest are at the same point. The Oma Forest is very close to the Lezika - Basondo parking lot which is where you can leave your car if you have one. Walking you have about 45 minutes until you reach the little forest, and luckily from the middle of the route the terrain begins to be descending and you get less tired.
Once in the forest there is a path that crosses it in the middle and that leaves you in the stream. From here you can return to Basondo through the valley or enter it, which in itself is a beautiful place.
The paintings in blue, red, green, orange, white and yellow They are everywhere, most of the decorated trees are pine trees, and as you stand in one place or another the vision is different. In fact, in some cases the work is only visible from a single observation point, which luckily is marked with a yellow plaque on the ground. And sometimes, from somewhere, what appear to be individual figures, come to life as a colorful ensemble.
In addition to that, we can add that the time of day in which you make your visit will also contribute its own: it will not be the same to go at noon with the sun on your head than in the afternoon, a winter day, with shadows, fog or growing darkness.
To do a complete tour, calculate about seven hours but if you don't spend much time contemplating and interpreting the works, you do it in much less. A couple, maybe. But it is that the forest is in the reserve and it is a very beautiful place to only see it in passing. And you can always spend the whole day outdoors, go out in the morning, have lunch and spend the afternoon.
If you want to eat in a restaurant, you can do it at Lezika Restaurant, just a hundred meters from the parking area. It works in a typical stone house and wooden balcony and in spring and summer it has dozens of flowers everywhere. Not only can you have lunch, in the afternoon you can also eat a sandwich, a sandwich, and enjoy beer and frozen juices.
We talked above about the Santimamiñe Cave And you cannot visit the Forest of Oma and miss the opportunity to know it. Is he most important archaeological site in the Basque Country and it was discovered in 1916, on the southern slope of Mount Ereñozar.
The remains of human settlements found here were estimated to be 14 thousand years old and there are also paintings of about the same age. Different animals and figures are seen, including seven goats, six horses, 32 bison, a deer and a bear. Marvelous!
The cave is part of the list of World Heritage Sites of UNESCO since 2008. They have been closed to the public since 2006 (after a hundred years of uninterrupted visits), but as we said above there are special and guided tours that last an hour and a half and that include the entrance to the hermitage of San Mamés that works today as an interpretation center and virtual visit.
While the visit to the Oma Forest is free and free the visit to the cave is with a guide. Everything is specified in the local tourism office and it is convenient to do it to know the schedules. The starting point of the visit is the office itself, but I regret to tell you that you will only know the area known as the lobby since the part where the cave paintings are is closed so that they do not deteriorate. Anyway, there is a 3D virtual tour that is fantastic.