{"id":320,"date":"2011-07-17T10:23:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T18:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/updegrave.com\/blog\/?p=320"},"modified":"2011-07-17T10:23:52","modified_gmt":"2011-07-17T18:23:52","slug":"going-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/updegrave.com\/blog\/words\/going-nowhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

[If you’re not interested in Burning Man and its culture, you might want to skip this one.]<\/p>\n

At the beginning of July, after spending a month in northern Europe, I pointed southward, destination: Nowhere.<\/p>\n

The Nowhere Festival<\/a> is an eight-year-old festival inspired by Burning Man, held in the Aragon desert of northern Spain. Many of you know that I’ve been attending Burning Man, Critical Massive (the WA state BM regional event) and similar BM-inspired events since 2000. I first heard about Nowhere around 2005, from a few of my friends in Europe who went early on, when there were around 200 attendees.<\/p>\n

Due to my limited carrying capacity for the food, water and amenities necessary for a week-long festival, I put a few calls out to join a barrio (Nowhere-ese for theme camp) with a food plan. I was eagerly received into the Garden of Joy, a barrio organized by a lovely group of Italian Burners. I immediately felt at home on arrival, being warmly greeted by Maggie (who initially answered my call) and Marco, the camp’s organizer and “spiritual leader” for lack of a better term (most of the Italians affectionately refer to Marco as “Baba”, from Satya Sai Baba, the famous Hindu guru).<\/p>\n

It could have just as easily been called the Garden of Decadence. There was a misting system installed in the common areas, keeping the temperature easily 5-10\u00b0C cooler than any other camp. An entire Jamon d’Iberico on the kitchen table, casually draped with a towel to keep flies off. Two refrigerators, electric and gas stoves, a thumping sound system, daily food deliveries from Sari?ena (the closest town), excellent meals, all the amenities a happy Burner might need.<\/p>\n

Most of all, the Garden was home to an incredible group of people – Italian, French, Dutch, British, Spanish, American, Canadian, Kiwi and more – I was lucky to find such a welcoming home and wonderful company, many of whom I expect and hope to see again during my travels.<\/p>\n

Official attendance this year was around 650 people, mostly folks who’d bought tickets in advance, but also a few locals who had heard about the event and came out to satisfy their curiosity.<\/p>\n

Burners: if time and circumstance combine to present an opportunity to attend this event, I strongly recommend it. It was quite possibly my favorite burn yet – I think in large part because I knew basically nobody on arrival, so was immediately forced out of my comfort zone.<\/p>\n

A few personal highlights and observations of the event (a few of these will only be meaningful to people who have camped with me on the playa for various years):<\/p>\n