Burning Man. An experience like no other. You may have heard about this event from a friend of a friend who went back when they didn’t have kids or maybe you saw some photos of a flaming unicorn in the middle of the desert and thought “what the heck is this place”? Well we went, and here’s what happened!
Burning Man is such an incredible experience where words will never do it justice. It is a unique 10 day event where every participant learns, grows and discovers entirely different things. We have been asked many times – ‘who was performing at this music festival?’, ‘isn’t it just a bunch of hippies?’ and ‘is it like that Coachella music festival?’ While all are valid questions (except for the last one), Burning Man is about so much more. We are sharing just a little of our own experience and hope that one day you will get to create your own memories!
Luke attended his first ‘Burn’ in 2015, and has been talking about it ever since. When we began planning our 6 months abroad, we made sure we were going to be in the USA at the end of August, just in case fate had it that we could secure the highly sought after tickets to this unique experience. While it was a challenge from registering in January to confirming the tickets finally in July (thanks to the help of our amazing friend Arian!!), the 2am alarms and long process as was absolutely worth it.
We drove up to Black Rock City, a temporary civilization of 70,000 in the desert in Nevada, with Arian and Steve, seasoned Burners and friends of Luke. It was an awesome journey talking about burns of the past, expectations this year and what to expect heading into such a harsh, immersive environment.
We were fortunate enough to be sharing the Burning Man experience with ~25 others as part of an established camp, Ganesh, which operates more like a family than anything else. Most of our campmates were seasoned veterans having gone to Burning Man every year since the 90’s! This made our preparations significantly easier, and rather than being entirely self-sufficient in the desert, we were able to take part in communal meals, set up a group camp and share every day with the Ganesh fam.
These were our key takeaways from our Burning Man experience;
The Playa. It is the massive desolate flat space that the Black Rock City surrounds and is both harsh and beautiful.
Incredible art. Each year is unique where artists create temporary structures, which can survive the elements of the desert and function differently at day and night. You could spend a lifetime wandering through the desert only to stumble upon art that we (or anyone) may ever seen again. Our personal favourite in 2017 was the Tenerife Tree, which became too popular as the event went on and spontaneous performances from symphony orchestras were broken up by crowds of thousands. See a clip of it in action here
On the art topic – the art cars. #mayanwarrioristhenewrobotheart. The crazy designs, lasers, music and fun that is had on these moving art and music platforms is indescribable. The best challenge is trying to find where they might be at any one time!
Extreme weather. From the most experienced of Burners, this year was the hottest burn yet, with temperatures exceeding 113 Farenheit (40 Celcius). This made cycling around a desert during the day a dehydrating exercise and led to a little bit of heat stroke on day 5 for Jelley. The desert is known for its extreme highs in the day followed by extreme lows in the evening, however we didn’t get a freezing cold night until the end.
We were grateful to be part of the awesome group at Ganesh camp, it was so great to spend our downtime chatting with such unique interesting people, helping to create a sweet camp together, relaxing in the desert storm proof tent and bartending with the mister fans on during the hot afternoons.
The variety of workshops on offer, day and night. There really is something for everyone here! Luke spent an afternoon learning more about bit coin, while Jelley was across the other side of the playa creating ‘art’ during a ‘paint & sip’ session.
The spontaneous moments. Like searching for an hour for a bicycle-powered smoothie camp which was really just around the corner, to arrive in time for the last smoothie of the day and discover a pink school bus filled with play balls! And the camp across the road from us having the absolute best live music afternoons (with free beer of course) and taking us out on their dragon themed art car at sunset, so dreamy.
There is an airport. In the desert. For just 7 days of the year?! We loved stumbling across this mini airfield one afternoon and seeing the array of small aircraft that some Burners had flown in. What a way to skip the queue!
Dust storms. Luke had warned Jel of these, but the one we were caught up in came out of nowhere! Instant white outs, dust everywhere and blind cycling through the streets. We were waiting for a massage workshop when the dust came out of nowhere and we were on our bikes to be part of the fun!
Being in a cashless society. Sure, we paid for the tickets, but once entering Black Rock City, ‘the playa provides’. There is no cash to be seen (with the exception of coffee dates at Center Camp), and plenty of fun to be had! A camp down the road had daily pork buns at midday and midnight, there were various breakfast stops, live music, hotdogs, ice slushies .. you name it, you could find it here! And free, seriously.
The Man burning. And art burning in general. It is incredible to think of the amount of time and love put into these incredible structures for just 7 days before they are burnt to ashes and remain only in memories and photographs.
Daft punk at the trash fence. Need we say more.
Burning Man was an amazing adventure to be part of, and some of our favourite days were stumbling across live music gigs, dancing, hanging out with Ganesh and riding our bikes through the desert with no destination in mind. It was super special to be able to share this experience together and enjoy the highs and support each other through the inevitable climate-related lows. After 10 days in the extreme desert environment, we had come full circle. It was time to leave at sunrise on Sunday morning and reenter reality. We are really grateful for our friend Joe for fitting us in his van, as another 3 days in the desert environment might have ruined us!
As you can probably tell we are bit behind on our blog posts (sorry mom hehe), but that’s only because we have been having too much fun exploring through California, The Pacific Northwest, and now Canada! We hope to catch you up on all of our adventures soon as we wind down these incredible six months.
Until then,
A Kiwi & A Cali xoxo
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