Mondaka was born as many good things are: without too many plans, with a lot of enthusiasm, and with the need for a place to skate when it rained. It all started in the spring of 2013.
There were four of us friends: Víctor, Gonzalo, Álvaro, and Cacolo. We had a pretty simple idea: to build a DIY skatepark, made by ourselves, where we could keep skating even if it was winter, even if it was pouring rain, or even if there was no other place nearby to do it.
The name Mondaka came about as a play on words between Mondariz, the location of the skatepark, and Mundaka, the famous wave in the Basque Country. A blend that made perfect sense: Galician forest, wood, skateboarding, surfing, humidity, and that idea of looking for one's own wave even if it was far from the sea.
The location couldn't have been more special. Mondaka was in the middle of the forest, in the beautiful municipality of Mondariz, next to a river and very close to the famous golf course. The property was huge and had an almost cinematic quality: an old abandoned fish farm, lost among trees, humidity, old concrete, and that strange silence of places that seem to be waiting for someone to use them again.
For the first three years, we were squatters. There was no other way. We moved in, cleaned up, fixed things, and started bringing life to a space that had been dead for a long time. After the third year, we managed to reach an agreement with the owner and started paying a monthly fee. It was a way to keep it alive, more stable, and with a bit more future.
The first thing we built was a spine. That was the first serious hammer blow, the first piece of the puzzle. We also painted a wall with the Machete logo, like a kind of flag. From there, Mondaka began to grow little by little, board by board, screw by screw, session after session.
Over time, what started as a place to skate when it rained became a very cool indoor wooden skatepark. A handmade skatepark, with mistakes, repairs, inventions, sanding, bumps, and a lot of learning. It wasn't perfect, but that was precisely its charm. It had soul, it had history, and it had that energy that only places built by the people who use them have.
Gradually, more people started coming. More hands, more ideas, more sessions, and also more people involved in the management. Mondaka stopped being just the project of four friends and became a meeting point. A place where things happened.
For a while, we even organized an annual non-profit festival: the Mondaka Fest. A gathering built on the same philosophy as the skatepark: doing it because we wanted to, because it made sense, and because we wanted to bring people together around skateboarding, music, bikes, and DIY culture.
The outdoor part of the property also started to come alive. We partnered with bikers, and ramps and jumps were built outside, taking advantage of the enormous size of that old fish farm. Mondaka was no longer just an indoor skatepark. It was a small world made of wood, mud, forest, bikes, boards, and friends.
It all ended in June 2024, when the owner sold the warehouse. The sale closed a chapter that had lasted for years and, in some way, was already part of the lives of everyone who passed through there.
Looking back now, Mondaka was much more than a skatepark. It was a way to show that, with enthusiasm and a bit of beautiful recklessness, things can be built where there was nothing before. A squatted place that ended up having an agreement, a community, a festival, shared management, and its own identity.
Mondaka was that: a DIY skatepark in the middle of the forest, next to a river, built by friends so they could skate when it rained.
And even though the warehouse is no longer Mondaka, everything that happened there lives on in the wood, in the photos, in the stories, and in the people who experienced it.
