Bosque de Oma, Painted Forest

On Friday, April 17, Katie, Val, Morgan, Kassandra and I went out to explore a painted forest. It is located in a forest outside of Guernica. We took a local bus for about and hour and then it is about an hour hike to the actual forest from the bus stop, where along the way we saw sheep, dogs, wild rabbits and cattle. Although the area was gorgeous, we didn't realize that the hike there was basically straight up a mountain, more difficult than we expected. 

Sheep!

View on the way to the forest

Wild Rabbits!!

Hiking up

Finally, we made it to the Bosque de Oma or Bosque Pintado, painted forest, where we plopped down to enjoy our packed lunches. Painted by Augustin Ibarrola, the paintings are painted directly on the trunks of the trees creating human figures, animals and geometric, some of which only become visible from certain positions, in which pictures of different trees form a joint image. There are observation points throughout the forest that show you where and which direction to look, very helpful. They put the paintings in the perspective of the painter. However, the forest was really, really cool and something very unique it was a lot smaller than I thought it was. I'm not sure if it was worth the huge hike to get there, but I'm still very happy I got to experience it. 

Only 50m more!

Points of observation

forms a rainbow!

crazy eyes!

Me in the painted forest!

this one was my favorite!