Cleaning Orbaizeta old munition factory in community work

The Orbaizeta arms factory was one of the largest weapons factories in Europe in the late eighteenth century. Although he is known by this name, actually they manufactured munitions (bombs, grenades and solid balls for guns).
It was  running  difficulty during 100 years, and soffer many wars, destruction and fires, which affected the villages of the valley of Aezkoa and therefore their neighbors for generations.
Today, once returned  the property of  the mountains in 1982 expropriated by the Spanish crown, and recovered its ruins by the  Aezkoa Valley council, is BIC (belongins of cultural interest). They most of the ruins can be visited but  they require consolidation and maintenance

Cleaning the yard  of carpentry and locksmithing

The money than before the crisis had to consolidate the ruins (PDR sustainable) disappeared, and the situation of the ruins is precarious. There are areas where you should not go because there is a risk of falling stones, and they are areas fenced that people are not always respected, but many others are visited.
  For this wide area, last year some neighbors of  the tourism sector of the valley started to coordinate and propose to make an auzolan to the Aezkoa Valley council.
The auzolan or artelan ( means neighborhood work) is a figure of community organization typically Basque, where neighbors get together to do a job for the benefit of the community, as in this case

Other times someone could summon his neighbors, to do some private work, like fixing a roof, but that person would always be willing to back the aid.
In the twentieth century this practice began to disappear, The village councils began to pay to third parties some of the work previously done in auzolan, and people will not need their neighbors and prefer to pay professionals arrangements.
Need was what kept the community together, and now also many people only go to the villages for the weekend.

The famous 22 arches separating the coal cellar and the  furnaces

If no money but there is goodwill, there is much that can be done.
This year we also have met for that purpose. The grass that usually invade the factory had been cut almost entirely by two council workers in May, but it waas necesary another cut, finish cutting the parts waht they didn´t cut, and expose in certain places removing 1cm  of ground the old pave that  the factory had, so that in later years the plants do not grow in that area, and  people can enjoy more the visit.

We have also conditioned the descent to the river so that people can get the most typical photo, the arcades. Last year we did most of this work, and now only have had to make a few tweaks.

clean pavement

If you wonder where I was, I will say that clearing and occasionally, taking pictures so that you can see it now.
All morning it has not left us the "txirimiri," the typical fine rain in these last days of 35º C seemed a distant memory, and so in this photo  we are not exactly ready to go to a wedding,

in front of the  bokarte

It is also true that we laughed, enjoyed the difference between before and after, and ... the hamaiketako or lunch!

Txistorra (sausage) and xingarra (bacon)

The underground passages

Knowns by few people and walk almost nobody, is a network of small canals that carried water under the arms factory, being the largest of them  Iturroil stream channel, passing beneath the palace, and crosses all the factory towards the river.

Main channel

Minor channel

 Legartza stream outway

Current up

The main channel is high enough for a person to be standing comfortably, and  as much the soil as the walls are made of ashlar stones. It's probably the best preserved of the whole factory, but  visit is not easy.

If one day you want to see any of these areas and see some of the tiles of the old iron roof,cannonballs, knows how life was  in this place, you know where to find me.

Cleaning in community work the Orbaizeta old munition factory

Cleaning the old workshop of examination of the ammunition 

In June during days 18 and 25, members of the tourism sector Valley Aezkoa who wanted do things despite the cuts and the lack of grants administration, met in the munition factory for Orbaizeta to improve accessibility and provide a more appropriate image as it is one of the main attractions of the Aezkoa valley.
With the approval of the council of Aezkoa Valley, owner of the ruins, we organized an auzolan or community work with the first goal of cutting the grass, cleaning trash, shut off the most dangerous areas and create on the slope some steps to the river Legartza, and people can admire the 21 stone arches that separate the coal from the rest of the factory.
But undoubtedly the most important goal of all was to start doing things like tourist sector of our valley,and begin to believe by working together, it is possible to do things if we unite wills.

Making steps down

To make the descent to the river was necessary  make a channel for a small but steady trickle of water that made the descent a something dangerous  for the constant mud that formed there, chiseling the steps with a hoe, and make a handrail which eliminate the danger of the side more height.

The posters were also being cleaned, by the time had gone dark with algae, which looks like this kind of material.

Cleanliness posters

Cut, collect, carry.

The amount of grass and brambles to grow over time did take us all day, and that we were about 8 people.

Taking the grass with the "sarde"

Cleaning the patio of carpentry workshops (right) and locksmith (left)

The "hamaiketako"

Around 11 am we stopped for brunch all, what is here called Hamaiketako, which in Basque means literally "the eleven´s one". The council of Aezkoa Valley paid the lunch, besides petrol to brushcutters,  and a accident insurance for the whole day

Garbage accumulated mainly in the Bokarte

In bokarte area, a large stone arch in the middle of the factory, we collected a lot  of garbage accumulated during many years  being used  the factory as a dump . The typical attitude of "if you do not see it, does not exist and is not my problem." We could find plastics in perfect condition as if they had thrown yesterday, and some much older things like shoe soles or bits of leather, certainly with many years but were decomposing smoothly.
The next day at work we find much more trash under a mixture of soil, leaves and stones.

The following week we decided to focus our efforts on cleaning the bokarte, where the collapse of a wall had covered much of the stone bath where was a wooden wheel that moved a  machine to crush the slag from the two  furnaces.

The bokarte, before cleaning without water

After the cleanup. Would you want a shower?

As this machinery was moving as all others by the force of water, the water is still falling to the bokarte from the Iturroil brook, channeled for it, and whose entrance I show you below.

A detour causes some of the water can get through a secondary channel and go to bokarte.

Channeling  Iturroil brook.

The  second day team

There is still much work to do, to be able to leave as many years was  after the labor camps developed almost 30 years ago. 
No doubt we will meet again to do all that we can without money , hoping that one day, we can get financing for real consolidation of the ruins, which are falling apart a little more each year. 

I want to thank everyone who worked, and somewhen they will work, their volunteer work, which shows that if not always, sometimes where there is a will, there is a way.

Neighbours work.Xidran´s brigde.

The auzolan or community work was a common practice in all the villages of  the valley of Aezkoa until recent years. Gradually had been disappeared and now ,only come true in very few occasions as I show you now, but still continue.The bridge  that you see in the picture was fallen few years ago , and although it was too much problem for walkers, walking along the path that goes  from Orbaizeta to the swamp of Irabia,  it was certainly awkward for people in mountain bike .

We choose 7 small trunks 7 meters in length to the base of the bridge, and had one of them to see how looks it from the stream bank.It was obvious that was necesary  to rebuild the old  wall of stone made without mortar, wearing fine stones. we rebuild the first of the sides with stone slabs and concrete remains of the old work of Irabia channel which were inside..

Gradually we began to move the rest of the logs, to align them, and fill the gaps between them, with branchs of hazel or ash, and rocks..

                                                                                   .The next step was to do a  walkable and  continous surface .we thought that a surface made with tables  could lead to the formation of fungi and algae and favor the slips, so we decided to do it like the old-fashioned, cheaper and in the sense of avoiding slips, more reliable. We create a gentle slope toward the bridge, and fill it with that ground. In some time when the soil has settled, we'll take a little more in the gaps that have formed.

Enjoy it!