It's weekends like these that force me to step back from reality and reassess life. We rented a car, a tent, and scrambled together enough food,water, and warm blankets/sleeping bags for the freezing nights. Anna, Ariel, Julie, Talya & I were set for Afrika Burn. The African spin on Nevada's Burning Man, Afrika Burn is an indescribable desert turned magical land for four days- a celebration of happiness and love. It is an inspirational, community orientated art/trance festival that is built on the concept of replacing monetary value with sharing and community. On Sunday night the "man" ( a large sculpture) is literally burned and there is no trace of the activities and participants from the weekend. Try and visualize a 60's acid trip deep in the African desert and that is Afrika Burn.
Although we met about fifteen other friends at the festival, traveling as five American girls in Africa again reinforced our incompetency. About three hours outside of Cape Town the "road" to Afrika Burn turns to complete dust for about two hours. We overwhelmingly felt as though we were driving through a desert post card.
MINOR BUMPS ALONG THE WAY WE CAN NOW LAUGH ABOUT...
Problem 1: We accidentally drove about 80 kph on this "road" and completely shredded one of our tires. Oops. Luckily, two guys from Joburg (I'll call them "guys1") drove past on this desolate road and helped switch our destroyed tire with our spare. Unfortunately we quickly discovered a second flat tire, luckily not completely destroyed yet.
Problem 2: After thanking and parting ways with Guys1 we realized we couldn't continue driving without fixing destroyed tire #2. About ten minutes later, two friendly guys (guys2) in a large truck stopped to help us. They were heading to AFrika Burn with all of the equipment for their band, Creme Brulee and the Seasonal Fruits. They reassured us that they were the Creme Brulee and we were their seasonal fruits. Luckily they had a small generator that they helped us use to pump air into our tire about every 10 k's for over an hour. This allowed us to drive on the flat tire the remainder of the way, but we would still need to fix it to leave on Sunday.
Problem 3: Because there are no purchases made while at Afrika Burn, we had absolutely no idea how we would find a new tire to replace our flat. After recognizing this minor problem we decided to enjoy our first night and deal with it in the morning.
Problem 4: Considering I spent the majority of high school summers on backpacking trips, you would think setting up a tent would be a simple task. Not so much. Due to our tire problem we didn't actually arrive until dark when the desert is horrifyingly cold. A nice guy (guy3) camping next to us offered his tenting skills once he realized five ditsy girls were virtually being blown away with their tent. After about an hour the tent was up and this problem was solved.
*We spent Friday night running around chasing the loud music trying to find the best party spot. Ran into some friends and met some cool people along the way.
Problem 5: Woke up early after almost freezing to death to blazing African desert sun. Julie, Talya & I ran around trying to deal with the tire situation before the festivities of Saturday began. After getting no coherent responses back from the organizers of Afrika Burn, our friend Greg (guy4) offered us his spare tire, not realizing that meant he had to actually replace the tire for us. After rolling under our car in the dirt, accidentally punching himself in the face, and finally realizing that his spare would not even fit on our rim, a pick up truck with two Afrikaner men came to our rescue. (big thanks to Greg for trying).
Problem 6: These two men (guys5)apparently are local farmers that come to Afrika Burn every year to help people with inevitable tire problems. The younger of the two stuck some tire sealant in the hole in our tire and saved our day.
Problem 7: Although we had four working tires on our car at this point, the reality of getting another flat tire on the drive home out of the desert was too risky. To say the least, we put way too much trust into (guys5) by letting them take our shredded tire to fix. They ended up loosing our tire and then finding our rim and putting the wrong size tire on the rim and having to take it off again. We at least were able to leave with a rim and knew that driving VERY slowly was going to be part of our ride home.
*Five groups of men helped us reinforce female ignorance and sorted all of our problems out. We are very grateful.
It is hard to actually explain the events of this weekend. Maybe it was because we were high on life, had a few too many drinks, or were running around baking in unbearable desert heat. The whole experience was magically irreplaceable. I think the best way to show everyone is through pictures because for me the weekend was visually stimulating in a way I have never experienced. We stumbled upon art cars (my favorite shaped like a pink fuzzy bunny slipper), yoga classes, massive art sculptures, a neon flower garden, a living room themed party, an Alice in Wonderland tent, bourbon cherries, and of course Creme Brulee and the Season Fruits playing on the back of their moving truck. Truly once in a lifetime.
SEE THE ABOVE POST FOR A SLIDESHOW OF PICTURES!
xoxox
emma
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