Burning Man (Black Rock City) Part 1

On Sunday the 24th of August, we headed to Reno to gather supplies and pick up Brian's friend Sabrina, who was also going to the burn. The radio warned of the weather. This time it wasn't a dust storm (like during the build, which forced the construction crew to rebuild much of the camp that had been blown over), but rain. And when it rains on the playa, vehicles can't move. The dust turns into a sticky paste that stops even off-road trucks. Therefore, they had to close the gates. Luckily, we weren't in line yet, but we could camp close to the beginning of it.

The next morning, the rain had cleared, and they opened the gates again. During our long wait in line, we prepared the van for the heat by taping safety blankets to the outside. This is quite effective in keeping the inside relatively cool. After about 7 hours, we reached the entrance and were redirected to D-lot. That's where you go if something goes wrong or if you've made a mistake. We were informed that someone had reported us for 'mooping.' 'Moop' stands for matter out of place. Burning Man is very strict about leaving no trace, and we had definitely adhered to that. The woman lecturing us received a firm response from Brian, asserting that we hadn't been mooping and that someone must have misunderstood the safety blanket situation. Then, we were permitted to park our van and get in another line to collect our tickets. The line was very long, and it began to rain again. We started to worry that we might get stuck. Suddenly, the lights went out, and a woman at the registers said something that only the people at the front could hear. Word quickly spread that the power was down, and we should return to our vehicles. About 50% complied, but we waited a moment longer. After a minute, the power came back on, and we could move much further toward the front of the line. Sabrina and Brian had reacted more quickly than Kirsten and I, and they got even further up. They wanted us to join them so we could get in before the rain worsened. But being good Germans as we are 😉, we didn't want to cut the line any further. So we devised a plan: Sabrina and Brian would get their tickets and the vehicle pass, return to the line with the van, and Kirsten and I would join them once we had our tickets. Good plan, except it didn't align with Burning Man rules. Brian had just passed the ticket check with the van when Kirsten and I got our tickets and walked over to join them. We were met by very angry ticket inspectors, who informed us that we couldn't enter without a vehicle. They scolded us as if we had committed a serious crime, and at that point, I started to get really annoyed. After paying a lot of money, waiting in several lines for about 8 hours, their lack of organization, and that rule not being obvious, I wasn't going to be treated as though I had just drowned a freaking puppy for making an honest mistake. Even I, as a German, thought, loosen up a bit! But Brian was redirected to D-Lot, where we were put back in the van and told by the same woman as before that 'no mooping' included people 😝. After that, we were finally allowed in. There is a tradition for first-time burners (like me) to make a dust angel. As Brian and Kirsten had never done that either, they joined me. We dropped off Sabrina's items at her camp and then went to ours, where she had some more things to collect. And there we were, finally joining Cosmic Giggle.

For the next two days, we were unable to explore Black Rock City much because it kept raining every afternoon. I found the situation quite challenging; not being able to simply go outside and wash or pee in the woods forced us to use some pretty disgusting porta-potties (they can't be cleaned when it rains because of the mud). I felt somewhat trapped. We did take a little walk to center camp to check out some art. It was fun stumbling through the mud and enjoying center camp almost entirely by ourselves. We also helped the camp set up additional things that they hadn't been able to finish on time due to the sandstorm. Brian worked especially hard; he is skilled with craftsmanship and has the energy of a Duracell bunny (haha, who is old enough to get that reference? 😋), it's incredible! ♥️ We had our first camp party and enjoyed dancing, massages, and getting to know more and more of the 40 people in our camp.

On Thursday, the rains finally stopped, and we could explore more. We tried to get a shower at the Dr. Bronner's (soap brand) camp. They foam you up and rinse you off, but when we arrived, they had run out of fuel for their generator. So we went to a camp with a sauna, but their stove was broken 😭 So, back to our camp for our own hair-washing party 😋

That night, we went out on the playa for the first time with our bikes. It was absolutely amazing. All those lights from the art cars, art pieces, bikes, and people wearing LEDs made it feel like a different world. The heat during the day was quite challenging for me, but I really enjoyed the evenings and nights...