page_title: Basque bowls
section_title: Álavan bowls
hierarchical_section_title: Basque bowls / Particular variants / Álavan bowls
caption_attribution_description: A graphic to explain the setup for Arabar boloa
context_page_description: Basque bowls, is one of the few Basque rural sports which do not originate in an activity related to rural or marine work. It has a number of other names too and is played in a bolatoki or bolaleku "bowls place" which often consists of a playing area in the open, an open sided structure with a low roof or a playing area located inside a colonnaded hallway.
  The game has been more common in the southern parts of the Basque Country in the last few centuries, especially in Álava and Biscay and to a lesser degree in Gipuzkoa and Navarre but documents from the Bayonne archives from the 17th-century mention the games and there is also other evidence to show that the game was also played historically in the northern part of the Basque Country.
  The main characteristic of the Basque variants of the game is the more prominent use of balls with finger-holes and hand-holes which distinguishes it from other regions in the area which prefer balls without.
context_section_description: Called Arabar boloa or lautadakoa (the one from the lautada) in Basque, juego de bolo alavés and bolo de la Llanada in Spanish.  The playing area consists of three main parts, all of which are a step down from the surrounding areas:
  the parra or pato which is a sunken wooden board delineating the edge of the area where the player may launch from
  the loma which is an 18–21 m long wooden plank, between 18–20 cm wide running between the walls of the sunken into the ground.
  the pin area, where the playing area widens again, with markers for the location of the pins.
  The balls have no handles, weigh between 2.1-2.5 kg, have a diameter of 16–17 cm and have no finger or hand-holes. There are four pins arranged in a triangle with the point towards the players. The one closes to the parra is the cantón, to the back and left is the carraca, to the back and right the guarda and directly behind the cantón sits the medio. The distance between the carraca and the guarda is about 2.4m.
  The players must launch the ball onto the loma, stay on it (otherwise a foul is declared which is called zula) and at the very least knock over the cantón to score. The aim is to knock all four over but if the ball rebounds from the side panels and knocks over a pin, they do not count. Currently, there are over 1000 registered bowlers and more than one hundred bolatoki of this style remain predominantly in the central part of Álava. The most important competition is the annual Torneo Interpueblos.
caption: Arabar boloa
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