Day 5: Thursday - Arrival #BurningManLog It must have been around 4:30 when I woke up and this time to my surprise I wasn’t the only one. Alex was up as well. “We want to see the sun rise from the playa and then see the embrace”. Good idea, we planned to meet up at Bubbles and Beats for some champagne and then head out. Alex and Inga left and I needed a couple more minutes before going there as well. Getting up in the morning can be hard, when the sun is not even up. After a short trip to and a quick look around I found Alex and Inga at Bubbles and Beats talking to a cute blonde. “Hi I’m Victoria from Sweden”. We started talking while Alex and Inga rather quickly left to see the sunrise. “We’ll meet you at the embrace”. No, we wouldn’t. After all, this is burning man. The sun came up and Victoria and I realized that the clouds had hidden most of the sunrise. Not much to miss there then, but I still wanted to see the embrace burn. “Do you want to join me?” We both saddled our horses and rode out into the playa towards the embrace. Thousands of people had gathered already to see it burn and bikes were everywhere. We parked at a spot where we hoped we would find them again and went to the front rows to see one of the most beautiful burns of this year. The fires started in the inside, lighting up the eyes of both of the lovers, then turned into fiery mohawks on their heads all this accompanied by dust devils dancing around their arms. A lovely way to begin the day, first the champagne and then a good fire, all in the company of a beautiful girl. What more can you wish for? “I have to get back to my shift”. Victoria left, but not without telling me that she would be there until 12:00. I said I was going to come by after the embrace finished burning, but as you might have guessed: this is burning man! We would not meet again. Once the embrace had burnt down I went back to look for my bike, but of course I was one of the idiots who couldn’t find it. Alright then I’ll just wait until everyone else left. My bike will be left somewhere by then. I went over to the mosque like structure that I hadn’t been to so far, which turned out to be a library. People wrote stories, jokes, translations and sometimes simply dick pics into the books. All in the spirit of expressing yourself. I decided to write a story of my own next to some other more serious pieces information and sat at one of the walls. As I was writing the outside turned from blue to white - a dust storm, a whiteout. Oh well, it’ll be over in a few minutes. No it wouldn’t be. Time went by, I was done with writing my story and had read through a bunch of others more. At the same time the champagne from this morning had made it’s way through to the other side and facilities were needed to help me relieve, so I strapped on my goggles, tightened a cloth around my mouth and nose and pulled my hat down. Off into the storm, to find the fabulous porta potties, that were somewhere near the temple. It couldn’t be too far, or so I thought. Stumbling through the dust storm, not knowing where the hell I was going out of nowhere a girl approached me. “Do you want an orange? You look like you need an orange. Here have an orange!” Who was I to disagree, after a thankful introduction I sat with Boo, Becks and a rather quiet Alexei in the dust. We exchanged stories and once again I told of palm leafs, destinies and India. The dust storm around us wouldn’t let up and made for an impressive stage for such story telling. Nonetheless, we still all felt like we had to go somewhere. The three of them tried to head back to the camps while I was still trying to get to the Vegas-styled sign which would lead me to my porta potties. But the dust can easily play tricks on you and your sense of direction. Instead of going towards 12:00 I was heading towards 9:00 and hit the road between the temple and the man. I had no idea where the others had gone and hoped that they would find a landmark soon as to not wander all the way to the trash fence. On my path through the storm I passed people with varying degrees of protection. My own goggles needed to be cleaned every half hour, because they were not completely sealed and water was hard to drink, as dust would get into your mouth immediately as soon as you lifted your mask. Beware of playa lung I thought as I saw a guy heading toward the main camp with a constant cough. My memory of the bazaar around the man wasn’t to precise, but surely there are porta potties around? I made my way down the 12:00 road until the man’s head appeared out of the dust, like a beacon of hope. Yes! Finally a landmark whose position is unmistakably clear. I circled the bazaar in search of bathrooms, but couldn’t find any. A masked figure appeared out of the dust. “Excuse me, do you know where the porta potties are?”, “Yes, I’m going there myself, let’s go together”. We talked and exchanged stories, turned out she even spoke some German and before long we finally found a row of blue boxes appearing out of the dust. Oh joy of relief when you really have to go. Afterwards I met my mysterious helper where we had separated to do our business. “Thank you very much!” I said. “No problem, but I think I’m heading back to my camp now. You know I’ll be at this party at 5:45 H later. we should meet.”, “Absolutely, but I have no idea what you look like”. We both had worn our protective gear until this point and no idea who the other one was. The great reveal! In synch we both removed our head gear and saw each other for the first time. Under the wide hat and thick scarf around her face, a set of shiny blue eyes appeared, piercing through the clouds of dust between us. We both smiled at the same time the moment we revealed ourselves. No words needed to be exchanged to understand the beauty of this moment and we both fell into a long warm hug. “Thank you so much again!”, I said as I was hugging her. “My name is Corinne by the way”. I planned to go see her later that day at the superheroes and villains party, but this is burning man. I would not see her again. We separated and with my morale back high and my bladder free I decided to go back and find my bike. It took me maybe half an hour to go back to where I came from. With a short stop on a larger art installation with a cage on top to find other landmarks I ventured out into the white of the storm, and low and behold within 5 minutes I found my bike. I jumped in the air out of joy and ran towards it. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Not so stupid now, eh? Little did I know that the dust would have killed most of my lights, but such is life. By now I had spent about 2 hours in the dust and I could feel my throat itching form the dust. Time to find shelter! Back at camp I realized it was already noon. Too late to find Victoria, plus I’m really beat. This much time in the dust storm costs a lot of energy and I needed to hydrate. I sat with Alex and talked about his experience so far. I noticed a transformation in him. His original attitude of sarcastic jokes about burning the man and the focus on party was completely gone. “I prefer to go out during the day, you make so many more connections”, is what he said. I smiled because I knew that he had arrived and understood burning man. It’s more than just the lights, the music and parties. It’s the people and the connections. Burning man still works. It might have changed over the years, but it still works! Later that night I went out with Andy to see the Alien Invasion, and impressive building with all sort of killing machines modeled in it’s interior and exterior. We shot a bunch of cool pictures before heading back. I had finally arrived. The feeling of being connected had finally come and I was truly home again.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:12:19 +0000
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