Going to Burning Man was one of my dreams. I hadn’t plan to go during this trip but it was definitely on my bucket list.
Getting in San Francisco 10 days before the event definitely convinced me. Impossible to resist the tornado of emotions and excitement that seizes the city the previous days! You cannot miss it. Everyone talks about it, some burners walk around the streets proudly wearing some of the outfits they specially made for the festival, Mission District thrift shops and Haight-Ashbury costumes stores are taken by storm, pre Burning Man parties boom out all over the place and the city seems to be transformed into a huge RV car-park. The Burning Man energy is spread all over the place.
After a few days champing at the bit and blaming myself for not being prepared for the event, I decide that nothing is impossible and I bet on a last minute organization.
To put things in context, it must be said that Burning Man takes place end of August/beginning of September, that the tickets sale is on between February and March, that those who wish to join a camp have to book 6 months in advance and that there is no infrastructure neither money system at the festival. You cannot pay for a room, buy food or water, nor you can rent a bike or any other means of transportation. Burners have to carry all the things they need to sleep, eat, drink, shower or move… This, in the eyes of some, requires an insane organization.
Fortune was by me side at this moment of my life and I made the acquaintance of Maria in San Francisco. Maria is a pretty Spanish girl living in SF for nearly 15 years and works at the Hotel 1906 Mission where I’m staying. She has a positive energy, went several times to the Burn, believes in Karma and has decided to muster all her energy to make my dream come true. Without her, I would certainly not have been able to go that year and I might have never gone at all. I owe her everything of my experience as a Burner.
Maria helped me to find a ticket and thanks to her friend Thalia I could stay in the Mind Eraser camp with access to a shower and 3 meals a day. Maria even lent me a tent, a bike and some accessories to make my Burning Man outfit! The day before the Burn starts, all I had left to do was to find someone to take me there.
After trying hard to find a ride on Craigslist, I finally get a positive feedback from Damian, who says he has room in his RV. Damian wants to meet before and check if I can drive his RV so we set up an appointment for the next day.
Not that I have hesitated to go after I met Damien, but I have to confess I thought it was certainly a bad idea!
Because of the vehicle first. What he called his RV is actually a ruined pickup, without mirror or turn signals, on which he had built a Wooden planks construction to give it the appearance of an enclosed vehicle, without roof though. This back part is an insane mess. His bike meets his clothes, a blanket, disheveled tools and a few bags of food. I will not expand too much on the front part of the car. I will simply say that there was no more seat and that we had to put our ass directly on the floor of the vehicle using dirty pillows as a seat to make the 340-miles drive that separates us from Black Rock City.
But more worrying, Damian himself.
Damian is rather tall, sturdy, full of tattoos, he has long blond hair and clear blue eyes. His appearance reminds a life of hard manual labor. He has a really unusual look, I would say that he looks like a former surfer who would have stopped the sport to dedicate his life to drug and alcohol. The way he speaks, the look in his eyes, the words he uses and his vision of things on the few brief subjects that we approach together send shivers down your spine. He appears to be a sensitive guy, with a dark vision of the world, probably depressed and attaching as much importance to life as to the old bandana he uses to keep his hair back.
I think that the road accident is very likely but I decide nevertheless to embark on thinking that I can still leave the vessel at any time if Damian drives like a crazy motherfucker.
Before leaving, we pick two more burners up, including Andrey and a girl whom we will deposit later in Reno where she has to meet her father in order to go with him to the Burn.
We leave San Francisco by the end of the afternoon with the goal of arriving on site around midnight – 1 hour, after a shopping stop at a grocery store.
But one thing surprises me on the way. Damian doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. On the contrary, he takes his time and we are running late. On the way we take long breaks. Particularly in Reno that we reach already late in the night and where we spend a lot of time looking for a specific grocery store that Damian is particularly fond of because he feels it has a “good vibe”. But that’s not all… Once the food provision is done, he decides to reorganize the rear of the vehicle and repaint some planks of wood in poor condition! Seriously?! In the middle of the night on the way to Burning Man?!
This painting workshop sets me thinking. This guy might well be very weird, there is something wrong, I cannot figure out what, but he is definitely hiding something. I have to find out what it is.
So I get annoyed, express my desire to be at the Burn as quickly as possible and my surprise that he does not seem to share this enthusiasm. Damian first tries to explain that it is important for him to repaint his vehicle before being confronted with the frequent sand storms of the Black Rock City desert, before he finally conceives that it is time to go back on the road.
The reason for all this stratagem became very clear a few kilometers from the finish.
About twenty minutes before the entrance of the Burning Man, Damian stops at the only petrol station in the area and asks Andrey and I to get off the car because he wants to show us something. I don’t know at all what to expect but that smells fishy.
Once outside, he takes us to the rear of the vehicle and starts to explain us that the trap of the pick-up can be blocked and unblocked with a clamp, in such a way that it is impossible to open it from the outside. Every word he says is a step closer to my understanding of the situation. This son of a bitch does not have a ticket for the Burn and intends to sneak in hiding in the pick-up!
Worse still, this asshole has the brass neck to explain that he is the biggest among us, that it is his vehicle, that he knows how to face the security check at the entrance and that consequently, it would be safer if he gets one of our tickets and Andreï or I get in his hideout!
It is then 4 o’clock in the morning on this Tuesday, September 1st. Since the festival started on Sunday, we cross path with very few cars or camper vans and the ones we see seem to be packed. We are exhausted by our nearly 15-hours journey and we are stuck in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night. Difficult therefore to take the decision to unload the pick-up and to hitchhike for this last 20 minutes drive.
We know, however, that getting caught attempting to sneak someone in would get the three of us kicked out of the Burn.
This option terrifies us but after a brief reflection and well helped by a furious desire to end this journey, Andrei and I decide to take the risk and I offer to take the wheel. The staff at the entrance will question the driver, no way I’m going to run the risk of letting anyone screwing everything up and stand there like a lemon in the middle of the desert. I have already been questioned in much more tense situations and I know how to handle the pressure in those moments. It’s certainly not the security staff of a festival that will destabilize me.
In the line for the entrance, I realize how much the organizers do not skimp on the set up to ensure that no smart-ass gets in without a ticket. This must obviously happen every year, but I imagine that many of those who try get caught. The staff in our line seem to take their job very seriously and search the vehicles from top to bottom. The car in front of us is literally emptied to make sure no one is hiding under a heap of cover or in the trunk.
When our turn comes, I am asked to cut the engine and give our tickets, which the staff keeps until the end of the procedure. They question me about the car, there is good reason to, and they ask me to confirm that it’s just the two of us in the vehicle and no one else is hiding there. Obviously I do confirm and the staff then asks me to open the rear so they can get in.
This is of course the most critical moment. The whole ploy is based on the fact that the rear door of the pick-up is supposed to be broken and impossible to open.
Who knows how they will react when I tell them? That sounds weird no? Will they realize that they are not be able to access a part of the vehicle and focus their attention on it? Will the presence of 3 bikes for two individuals surprise them? Will they use their flashlights to try to see through the many small holes in the wooden planks and discover Damian’s hideout? Personally this is what I would do…
Up to 3 people enter the vehicle from the top. They search everything from top to bottom, they move all that is there. Bicycles, blankets, bags… Everything! Sometimes they stop, talk together and seem to focus on some parts of the vehicle. They even lightly kicked in the wooden construction as do the thieves in the movies to find out if a safe would not hide behind a part of the wall that would sound more hollow than another. The search lasts 5 good and endless minutes.
Fortunately, we are dealing with conscientious but not vicious workers and we successfully pass the gates of paradise.
But still I can’t get over it! I have nothing against a bit of vice to get around a few rules. But how can one run a risk for two other people without even warning them of the existence of this risk?! The deal would have been okay if Damian had told us before we left “Okay guys, I do not have a ticket, I’m going to hide in the car and if we get caught, none of us will get in but if you accept to take the risk, I give you a free ride and pay you a drink”. In this case the deal would have been honest and Andrey and I could have consciously decided whether or not to run this risk. But Damian preferred to hide the truth from us until the last moment to make sure we cannot turn back.
What kind of an individual does that? Is it not absolutely contrary to the Burning Man spirit?
Make no mistake, at the 2015 edition of the Burning Man, if there was indeed a man to burn, it was Damian!
