Play ball!
October 15th, 2009
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In the afternoon, Koen and myself tried out a local sport called pelota. You hit a ball against a wall, and hope your opponent can’t hit it back. Pretty simple, no? Read more…
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Posts Tagged ‘pelota’
Getting active with pelota
October 15th, 2009
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Hanging out in bars and mingle with the locals has its advantages. Last Saturday night two Basques from Bergara invited Michael and me to play some pelota with them. Read more…
Jai a what??
November 14th, 2008
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Just to make things clear, I’m not the type of guy that enjoys watching sports. Oke, I could make an exception when the Dutch national team plays the world cup, dress up in orange and enjoy the crazy atmosphere but that would be my max.. Anyways, out here I found out that watching a game on a weekend day is quite a popular thing to do. But of course it had to be different! Pelota they call it, and it’s a bunch of different games that just require a wall and a ball, sounds easy huh?
Me and two friends went watching one of these games, to the best known version I think, called jai alai. This version of pelota is played with a launching basket and a goat skin covered ball, and according to the Basque government it’s the fastest game in the world! With balls going at 302 kilometres per hour, I’m not surprised.
In the pelota court, I didn’t quite understand what they were doing exactly. I just knew that it went bloody fast. Two teams of two players managed to catch the ball in their basket and launch it at the wall without getting hit themselves, which to me sounds like a painfull affair! Luckylie we were protected by a net..
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