September 04, 2006
Burning Man 2006
Burning Man 2006 - my third annual pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert. This time, I managed to get my tickets the first day they went on sale.
Daryl, Stefan and I were riding our rented van, a major innovation compared to last year's truck. Instead of staying over in Reno, we were fortunate enough to be invited by Jim to spend the night in Truckee, my other temporary home town besides Black Rock City.
After some last minute shopping (mostly groceries, water and parts for our evaporation pond) we left Truckee for Black Rock City early Wednesday afternoon.
Our arrival back home was not pleasant. In the very second of Stefan taking his turn at the virgin bell one of the nastiest dust storms I had experienced so far hit the city. For the following hour we tried to find a spot to camp in a permanent whiteout. Next year we're getting theme camp placement, I'm serious...
After a nice mellow party night (mostly spent at the Serpent Mother, the Message out of the Future and meeting the mayors at Illumination Village) we got the rest of the camp set up, just in time for Michi and Larry's arrival.
Thursday night was our first complete Esplanade stroll, right after spotting the Space Cowboys unimog at the Lotus club. It's good to get off your bike and experience all of BRC's hottest strip. We ended the night at the Opulent Temple.
Friday began with a real highlight. The night before Jim had offered to take us up in his airplane for a scenic tour at 5000 ft. It was more than exciting to see the city from that perspective (check out the photos in the gallery). Later in the day, Michi and I crashed the Critical Tits after party.
Friday night was all about fire - we took a little sunset bike ride and were (by complete coincidence) asked by the Ascension Tribe to help maintain the 2BLEVE perimeter. We had experienced their Thursday night shot while pedaling away from the temple and decided it was worth to spend half an hour to see the spectacle again from the front row. What followed was ten times bigger as the day before and simply unBLEVEable. Witnessing exploding 300 ft fuel jets from closeby is a magic yet humbling experience.
We thought we had already missed the fireworks choreography designed to be the icing on the Serpent Mother cake. Fortunately, the show started playa time, so we were able to enjoy a beautiful pyrotechnic symphony that was set off by El Diablo.
After worshipping Bassnectar at the Connexxus Cathredal we were captured by the Big Round Cubatron for the first time.
Posted by Uli at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)