They're crunching the numbers. Some said that 30,000 people swarmed the desert that is Black Rock City, but I heard from some of the 'officials' that nearly 100,000 showed up.
Rights of Passage marked the first year that Burning Man tickets completely sold out, and the wait in line to enter the Playa was over 4 hours long.
The bus in front with "ON TO BURN NOW" is the one that I arrived in, but this photo was taken from their sister bus, "Swamp Thing". We were drinking and getting high before we even reached the gate, and I cannot describe in words how happy I felt to be there, even though we'd arrived at 4:00 in the morning and I'd had virtually no sleep through the night.
The wait didn't bother me; it was like one big party - just another part of the event, which we were all glad to be a part of.
At the final barricade before entering Black Rock City, we were stopped by two old men, buck naked aside from the hats on their heads and bandannas around their necks. They pulled all us so-called "virgins" off the bus, hugged us in their nude glory, and then had us strip down to our undergarments and roll around in the Playa dust - this was initiation.
Thereafter, we were handed a huge metal mallet and instructed to strike a massive metal gong, at which time we shouter aloud, "I'M NO LONGER A VIRGIN!"
The naked man closest to me grabbed my bare shoulder and told me, "Welcome to Black Rock City. You can do anything you want here." And I felt free.
Burning Man is magic. It is a social experiment gone horribly, horribly right. It is ANARCHY, and perfection, and a restoration of one's faith in humanity. There is no money, no computers, no cell phones, and yet, everyone is in a state of week-long bliss. It changed my life.
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