The Basque Country can be seen as a wonderland. To Javier it is, anyway. Wonderland? It's actually the name of one of the first videos his nonchalance got witnessed in, ever. What year was that, 1994? Exactly. And already, as the skateboarding world was still trying to heal from the pressure flip years, Javier was different, mixing in this Gijon-filmed part the old and the new, the tech and the gnarly. Back in these segregated days, not many people would see the same beauty in a kickflip f-side nose slide than in a huge indy air on a 7-feet quarter pipe that counted 4 feet of vert. Javier, and many a Basque skater, did. No way to do otherwise: from Gijon then to Algorta later, the skateparks' transitions in this very particular part of the world, the one that speaks a language linked to no other eutropean one, have always reflected one of its people's main characteristics : bow down to nobody. Might sound rough, but the brutality of the spots, this display of Basque radness, is what shaped Javier's unique way of skating. The man can tailslide where everybody else can barely kickturn, as a certain Skateboarder mag cover proved. To Javi, the deep, fast bowls of Brixlegg, Marseille or Malmö feel like your neighborhood's curb. And yet, without any arrogance, ever. What Mendi wants is simple : he's been on the road for the past 10 years and just wants to keep on traveling, roaming from spot to spot. Not to compete. Not to win. Just to skate, in a true skate-bohemian fashion. Resumes being for 9 to 5ers, Javier didn't need one. The flowing Basque has earned all due respect from his fellow US pros by just being... himself. When writer John Krakauer described how his character decided to venture "Into The Wild", it's not totally sure he was talking about the world's skateparks. Javier went anyway. He's not returning anytime soon.