Nowhere 2016

I’d spent the traditionally crippling 5-day Glastonbury comedown preparing for my festival odyssey. It wasn’t that the usually demobilizing period was difficult or that it was hard to get myself orientated for my biggest adventure yet, just exhausting and flowing with waves of doubting anxiety. The night before I was due to fly out the same chain of thought kept oscillating in the carousel of my mind…

 

‘Why am I doing this again? Why did I think an entire summer of festivals in foreign countries would be a good idea? Exactly how am going to get to middle of the Spanish desert with no assistants tomorrow?’

 

I was on the verge of losing my shit the night before when after a day of last minute organisation, the internet in the house decided to pack up and I was getting ever the more flustered about checking in for my flight the next morning or face the consequence of being robbed in broad day light by the Ryan Air penalty fair. Luckily I live within walking distance of The Woman now and she was around to let me use her router for a few minutes. Her presence alone would also be enough to calm my increasingly doubtful thought ride. Jem also came to pay a visit, and I was grateful that the last people I saw before I left England was those 2 friends especially.

 

But as usual it was my 2 personal therapists who were there to get me in the ‘lets the fackin’ ‘av it!’ mindset and that was in the in the form of a pep talk from Deirdre which was just a few simple sentences… ‘You’ve got this! You’ve completed so many harder challenges in the past. It’s hardly the Afghan desert is it?’ and of course Michelle who assured me that those relentless doubting thoughts were naturally apart of the excitement of traveling.

 

So after a more then quoted Uber ride I was soaring through Stanstead airport onto a plane and touching down in Zaragoza for about 14:00 and by 14:45 I was in the company of several other Nobodies one of whom was conveniently fluent in Spanish. This made for a completely smooth and straightforward commute to Nowhere which despite taking us all day was a completely painless experience ode entirely to the company I was in for it.

 

Nowhere is a DIY, arts festival in the same spirit of Burning Man in the States. It is located in a scenic yet harsh location a few minutes drive from the local town of Seriena on the Spanish plains. The temperatures hit as high as 40 Celsius and is also a host to breathtaking sunsets and sunrises as well as a few awesome lighting storms. An entirely community based society built on 10 principles such as radical self-expression, self-sufficiency, inclusion and no commerce as well as leaving no trace. For about 3 weeks of the year a vast spectrum of walks of life organize the festival, construct different themed barrios (camps) art instillations, sculptures and arrange workshops for what this year amounted to a capacity of 2,000 participants. There is no guest list or lineup at Nowhere, everybody pays the ticket fee and nobody takes home a wedge from the organization of it. Everybody who attends is considered a participant. Due to it’s principal of self-sufficiency, all participants must fend for themselves. This means supplying all your own essentials for the duration of your time there; including food, water and eating and drinking utensils. Since there is no commerce there is nothing to buy whilst on site (aside from ice which is sold for 2 and half euro for health reasons) however a bit of a loophole in this principle is to pay a fee to join one of the many barrios, where for the price of about 150 euro you’ll be fed, watered and sheltered for participating as apart of the community of your camp.

 

There are a variety of barrios with their own unique vibe to choose from. From the chilled, to the saucy to the out and out party. I was linked to a couple of camps, one of which was at full capacity by March and the other I reconsidered due to its majority of British members. I sent off applications to several barrios to either no response or no avail, but it was The Baby Bloomers camp that I chose in the end. A pink themed camp built around the concept of accepting 98% newbies from a kaleidoscope of different nationalities. I liked the challenge and comfort of being in the company of a load of first timers, but what really perked my interest was that it was also advertised being multi national which I thought we would be a great way of meeting a host of different and interesting people. The camp was made up of 2 common areas filled with pink fluffy lounge furniture and cuddly toys, whilst on top of the two shipping containers we constructed a viewing area turn dance floor.

 

As I arrived 3 days before the event was due to officially start, our camp was comprised of a laid back and friendly Parisian man, an often naked, quirky and endearing bird from the north of France, as well as an American lady living in Berlin, an Irish bird from Dublin, an Englishman from Bristol living in Portugal, another French lady who I never really had the chance to speak to. A Londoner who now lived in Barcelona as an architect, who was probably one of the coolest people I was to meet all week and Jean who was the main camp organizer. An engaging and friendly Parisian, whose good looks, intelligence, energy and humanity could have by rights fuelled an ego with enough energy to burn out the sun, but was in truth an incredibly selfless and totally genuine article whose drive and attitude fueled the entire camp morale.

 

I didn’t have much time to help with the construction of the barrio the following morning as I had signed up to one of 3 greeters shift. The idea of the greeters is to welcome all guests, indoctrinate virgins, teach or remind people about the principles and ethos of the event and generally boil up the vibe for people who need perking after what was probably an arduous journey. The gate lead was an infectiously energetic Italian woman called Luana. Whose seemingly infinite sprit and energy embodied the vibe of the festival. She was one of those indestructible, bubbly people who are able to befriend any stranger that stands next to them. As the shift went on and her energy and passion only seemed to gain more momentum and lead me to joke that I’d like to cut her up and do a line of her as I’d probably be off my tits for the whole weekend. She laughed and assured me that the repercussions from being so high all the time was that you face some pretty isolating crashes… Not surprising really. When I wasn’t working with her I was to see Luana bouncing around the Playa for the remainder of the week. Chatting away to anyone and everyone, with a beautiful smile glued to her face the entire time. Straight away I considered her one of the main arteries that pumps life through the Burn community.

 

The shifts themselves were great fun but also pretty intense and knackering once guests started arriving thick and fast. It was the ideal way to get myself accustomed to how the festival worked. Greetings usually come in the form of hugs and alot of participants like to introduce themselves by their Playa name. During the shift  I’d tell people about the 10 principles, do a bit of a speech about the importance of consent & boundaries; tell them about the dangers of the wilderness beyond the tape that acted as the festival perimeter fence (or lack of as a lot of people would gather on the surrounding mountains to watch the sun rise and set). Instill the importance of leave no trace and M.O.O.P (Matter out of place) as well as tell them how to use the toilets and point them in the right direction of where it was they were camping. Virgins were then deflowered by ringing a bell and rolling around in the dust, before then getting a spanking. I’d do this in 5-hour shifts whilst dressed in a duck laced tutu and headdress. Unfortunately though the opportunity to use the line ‘come on in, make yourself a drink, have a good time now, welcome to paradise’ from The Avalanches record completely flew over my head.

 

I met some pretty cool people during my time as a greeter… A portly and charming Bavarian veteran of burn events, who would deliver such a warm and informative greeting to every guest that he could get his hands on and who also ran a barrio with a bar serving German beer that I was to visit frequently over the week. A couple of Dutch geezers who kept me laughing during one particularly lazy shift, A really lovely Canadian bird who unfortunately I didn’t see enough off over the week but made plans to meet up with later on the road. There was also several gorgeous numbers from Madrid, France and the south of Holland. It was also where I was to have an experience similar to that of seeing a ghost, bumping into someone who I had completely forgotten existed. This person was the ex wife of a good friend of mine, Whom I don’t think I had properly seen since their wedding 4 years ago. I never got to the chance to have a catch up with them though unfortunately. Would have been nice to hear what they had been up to during all that time.

 

I’d highly recommend it as a shift to volunteer for, especially if you’re new as it’s a good way to learn about the ethos of the festival and have a lot of fun at the same time. Other popular shifts include working on the ice counter, welfare and malfare as well as shit ninja’s for the toilets and of course gate keepers for checking tickets to name a few. It’s accustom to get involved in some volunteering when attending the festival.

 

As the days passed the camp members grew and within a few days we were at full capacity having a full induction ceremony which climaxed with all of us holding hands in a circle outside of the barrio and Jean providing many words of wisdom, most notably ‘There will be people in the camp who you think might be acting weird at times, but if they do just give them time and soon you will find that you understand them completely’ Great advice, especially considering that I found a lot of the new members of the camp hadn’t really been exposed to such an environment before. Fair play to them for giving this a go as a first blast, even though I’d only been here a few days I was already noticing that this festival had the difficulty level suitable for the more seasoned festival goer.

 

Our barrio was filled with a wonderful variety of nationalities, cultures, languages and ages. Mostly from France, but there was also Belgian, Egyptian Tunisian, Italian, Indian and a few Spanish too. A beautiful bunch, each with an impeccable command of English and who would use it to converse in interesting and witty ways. The trouble I encountered was that no one could really understand a fucking word I was saying. I’ve had this problem before when travelling – the reality of having a broad English accent, or in my case a nasally South London accent is that we don’t really realize how bastardised our own language actually is. I was discussing it with a group of English people and we got on to how once you get into the colloquialisms and sarcasm of the British dialect it all gets very offensive, very quickly. I for one also struggle with toning my accent down. I never really have to do it in London even when talking to one of the infinite number of cultures we have inhabiting the place, this partly due to laziness and also due to me holding my south London identity very dear to my personality. I struggle to disguise it. A pity really as I found this was at times a barrier when trying to interact with my fellow camp members.

 

So due to the self-sufficiency principle, to get around comfortably and safely at Nowhere it is important that you have on you at all times a water bottle clipped to a utility belt containing your sun cream, moisturizer, electrolyte tablets, ash tray, sun glasses and so on. Also it’s wise to carry a cup with you as well if you want to get top ups at each of the bars on offer or if someone wants to gift you a drink of some sort. The risks of carrying a cup around though as I was to find out was the inevitability of getting really wasted and leaving it in a toilet. Luckily though my cup, food bowl and cutlery combo was part of a Yugoslavian surplus kit I got off ebay so it was easy to spot from all the conventional mugs and was luckily confronted hours after by one of my camp mates saying ‘I believe this is yours’ with my recently condemned cup in their hands.

 

As I previously mentioned there is no commerce at Nowehere, so you cant just buy any shit you fancy or might have forgotten. Pitching up in free camping means bringing all your food and water with you, however many barrio’s will have food workshops where they hand out free meals. These can be pretty popular however and waiting times can be pretty lengthy so personally I never really bothered especially as my Barrio came with one cooked meal a day as well as fruit, bread and cheeses to snack on. If you’re lucky however a barrio may just gift you a hot meal if you’re really nice to them.

 

I found the gifting and no commerce principle a bit of a new one to get my head round at first, but ended up being one of my favored aspects. The thought that people would save and prepare all year just so they can give things back to a community of strangers, whether it be food, booze, or little trinkets was always very comforting. I do however have a problem for asking for things, especially when it came to getting hold of drugs. Obviously being offered a line by someone you get chatting to at a festival is just a standard practice but to actively walk around asking strangers to give me free gear upsets my very British sensibilities. I was constantly assured however that this kind of method was not a faux par in such a community and that asking about would eventually lead to someone happy enough to gift a pill or a tab or whatever. I was sat round with a few people at my barrio discussing which nationalities would be bring what drugs and we settled it at… Dutch/German=Pills, Swiss=Acid and Britsh=Ketamine. I was later to find out that our predictions were mostly correct.

 

The most noticeable principle in action at Nowheres is ‘Leave no trace’ This meant that all participants were responsible for keeping the place spotless and not letting any MOOP hit the ground, there are no general bins on site so everyone has to carry their litter with them. The principle made the festival site so spotless that I felt inclined to keep the place tidy, often picking up bits of litter as I went around, I stopped doing this however when I’d wake up the next day and find that my pockets were filled with dog ends, empty beer cans and little bits of plastic. I also discovered that it meant that anything placed on the ground was fair game. One night I was having a dance next to an art car blaring out 80’s and 90’s British classics, when I noticed the baring on my water bottle had given way and I could no longer clip it to my belt, so I danced with it at my feet, looked over to my right to see one of the birds that I traveled to the festival with and in the 20 seconds it took me to say hello and give her a hug my water bottled had been MOOPED from beneath me. This killed my buzz a bit; my water bottle is essentially my most important bit of kit. When I told Jean the story he responded with some sound advice ‘You cannot trust these hippies man!’ and then regaled me a story of a time at Burning Man when he had a pushbike fitted with a sound system and similarly to my story in the time it took him to get off his bike and go say hello to a friend, someone had ridden off with it whilst his back was turned. Put my story into perspective really, I’d run down the hippy that stole my bike. As it turned out I was then gifted a temporary water pouch by another Baby Bloomer, and then luckily I found a new one in a toilet cubicle the following day – The playa provides.

 

The searing heat during the day meant that nighttime was always a very welcome site. With the sun gone and a cooked meal in me and a days worth of dust and sweat showered off, I was free to kick my boots off, start slamming back the booze, slap my suit on and find a decent party, and I have to say that the nightlife at Nowhere is absolutely fantastic! Every night seemed to be unique in its own way, owed what I think was mostly down to each Barrio throwing their own party every night. The big headliner being Ubertown. The largest and most aesthetically impressive of all the barrios, designed as a post apocalyptic town centre that would spurt fire and play drum and bass and dub step. It was refreshing to have somewhere spinning tunes at a good level as I don’t reckon Burn events necessarily present themselves to be huge rave-ups.

 

So after a gift in the form of a line of MDMA me and a few other Baby Bloomers trotted up to the spectacle that was Ubertowns opening party. The energy of the crowd immersed in it was electric, not a still body in the whole gaff. I ended up having one of two profound moments that really made me reflect on the culture with which I was brought up raving. The first one being this French bird dancing next to me who was incredibly friendly, chatting away to me, offering me drinks, throwing shapes and giving me hugs. I couldn’t help but think that she was almost definitely coming on to me. Until of course her boyfriend showed up who was just as equally friendly and put it down as a false alarm, then literally moments later two sirens circled me in a provocative, sensual dance and naturally I gave them my usual wink, smile and an ‘alright girls?’ From my background of Bangface and squat parties the dance floor aint necessarily considered a place for seduction and I personally have always found the culture of using dancing floors to pull birds to be a very foreign and at times vulgar playing field. I really don’t know what I’m doing. Dance floors for me have always explicitly been places for me to have a good think or have said thoughts drowned out by really loud music… The 2 saucy birds moved on from me when they realized I weren’t playing ball onto the next bloke and then spent a few minutes copping off with him, then they moved onto the next. It was just their game for the evening I guess. Fair play to them. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to seduce someone on a dance floor; my dancing is probably the most unflattering thing about me anyway.

 

Another Barrio party I thoroughly enjoyed was Garden of Joy’s. Their Barrio in particular was always pretty chilled. Had a large common area with loads of soft areas for people to sleep, chill out or fuck. For their party they partitioned the dance floor for those who felt like wearing clothes and those who didn’t. An inspired idea I thought! Whilst dancing there stark bollock I looked around and noticed that there were some very beautiful people around me indeed, especially this number dancing next to me who was a smooth vision of beauty, shifting her toned body with such elegance and a look of ecstasy on her face which I couldn’t quite figure out was a product of the drug itself or her own natural state of bliss. Observing the gorgeous specimens of nature dancing next to me I realized once again as I have before in situation where I and everyone else is nude, and that’s that we’re all the same naked really. Regardless of size or colour or what unique deformity we might have, we are all equally beautiful when we take our kit off.

 

Unfortunately though I didn’t spend all night at the Garden of Joy like I expected myself too. This was partly down to the closest bar being a 5-minute walk away and I walking to and from there would cause me to get distracted by something or someone. But also because one of Nowhere’s very few downfalls is that I found the music on offer to be really quite pedestrian. Now as I mentioned earlier the festival doesn’t in anyway declare itself to be a music festival, it’s a lot more then that. But I did often find myself wondering around in a state of despair trying to find some decent beats to dance too. Yea sure I saw some good improvised live bands and the Eat Your Art Out barrio specifically was very consistent with tunes all week, but there was never too much more on offer then minimal trance, techno, psy and other general radio fodder that really doesn’t perk my interest. It’s the downfall of being a music snob really, but when I get bored of dancing stark bollock on a dance floor of fellow naked people because the music the DJ is playing is diluted trance at a semi high volume then that’s an issue for me. There was also issues with power cuts and some gremlins with live bands, but considering all sound systems are powered by generators and all live music is set up by the musicians playing it, this is simply par for the course and not a genuine criticism. Everyone else however seemed to be constantly dancing like they was at their best friends wedding and that’s what really matters.

 

 

The Babycham and Why Not camp’s link up party was also a highlight. There was actual quality tunes with poll dancers and a bar where a kindly bartender liberally served me high proof ‘gender neutral’ cocktails until I drank the bar dry. I also had my prediction of the British bringing ketamine with them proved correct, when a woman in her later 60’s offered me a bump and told me that one of her and her husbands favourite pass times was smashing a huge line in a comfortable environment and listening to Beethovens 9^th. A recommendation I will follow up as soon as possible. It was also to be where I had my second rather profound ‘fancy seeing you here moment’ of the week. One of those situations where you clock someone’s face and the thought of ‘I definitely know that person… But where from?’ runs through the catalogue of memories in your mind. Then it hit me! 4 years ago me and a friend attended a saucy party in south London, got friendly with this couple and mucked about together. We swapped numbers but lost contact. On my part this was because life fell to pieces not too long after that party, but then this geezer told me the reason they never got back in contact was because they too had a trauma so high on the Rictor scale it made me embarrassed to mention what I had been through during that period. Always worth remembering that no matter how dark your black period is, there is always someone else having a much more challenging time. The next day when I approached his missus to tell her how we’d met before she responded ‘Ooo Yea I thought I recognized you!…. Have I had your willy in my mouth?’

‘I believe you have’ I replied.

 

That night gave me such a gnarly hangover that the following day I spent it laid out on one of the blow up beds in my barrio drifting in and out of consciousness all day long, watching the dust twisters tear through the playa, rip up the structure of other barrios and even storm through a meditation session. I remember being so fatigued I couldn’t even properly converse in a workshop one of my camp mates had put together. The mix of intense heat and no proper food on offer completely knee capped me, and I remember lying there thinking that over the course of a summer of festivals, how many of these situations can my spirit really take? It wasn’t until a brief, refreshing shower drifted over the plains that I finally sprung to life. It really made me appreciate just how the harsh environment of Nowhere can really take it out of you. There were even a few people I noticed bailed early due to the intense conditions. Most noticeably this really friendly couple from Manchester who had turned up a bit early to help with the build of our camp, which was a shame because I quite liked them.

 

Another repercussion of holding a festival in a desert is that for the majority of us warm blooded mammals it makes day time partying or even rambling somewhat of a health hazard. What there is to do though is to attend a variety of workshops, talks and activities and this where the festival really comes into its own. I found that even the most obscure title got plenty of eager and willing attendees and what’s more I didn’t attend a single one that I thought to be in anyway a bit crap, on the contrary, I came out of every activity pleased that I’d bothered to get off my arse out of a hammock or a sofa to get involved and the element of having your fellow festival goer hosting each workshop – sharing their knowledge, skills and at times food and drink, really compliments the sense of community that the festival basis itself on. Even the ones that I only showed up to because I just happened to be lounging in the Barrio at that time seemed like an hour well spent. For example Jean hosted a workshop titled ‘Collective intelligence & invisible architecture’ which I think you’ll agree on paper sounds as vague as a sportsman post match interview, but was instead a very interesting activity where 3 complete strangers were given a question such as ‘How do you think you could better yourself in a way that could help others’ then given a few minutes to ramble as much as we could, if we ran out of things to talk about we would then sit in silence. We were each given 3 questions to expand on and each go the time limit increased. The exercise really made me appreciate just how hard it is to try and make out you know what it is that you’re trying to convey.

 

Another activity that played out most days that I enjoyed spectating was the ‘beergasm’ at the Costume Camp where a group of nobodies would stand on stage, strip off their clothes whilst shaking a beer to the tune of Thus Spoke Zarathustra until cracking the cans in a spectacular climax of spunky, alcoholic foam. I’d also attend morning meditations a debate on Brexit, and most of the workshops that involved booze or coffee. I could make a list of everything I attended or missed but there are just too many to choose from and admittedly I dont remember all of them.

 

Another one of Nowheres appeals is its completely liberal attitude towards sex and nudity, so much so that saucy workshops and activities seem to take up the majority of the programme and tits, fannies and cocks are paraded around with complete gay abandon. The two main contributors of smut were both the Touch & Play and Yes Camp. The latter which hosted such stadium filling workshops on ‘the art of cunnilingus’ and blow job techniques whilst the former had everything from foot dom workshops, ‘the art of getting your partner naked’, orgies and gang bangs. The only one of theirs I attended however was an early morning ‘Self love practice’ an idea so absurd it could have only been fun. Basically what this consisted of us was a tent filled with around 10 blokes and 6 birds sitting around in a circle and initially talking about our relationship with wanking. I got a few laughs by saying that my love of having a tug was down to the fact that its what gets me to sleep at night and wakes me up for work in the morning. We then split off into groups of 3, got our junk out and just had a few moments of verbal appreciation before all lying down and rubbing one out for 15 minutes. The goal of which was not to climax but to ‘surf the threshold without reaching it’ the workshop then concluded with a few nude yoga salutations. I later bumped into a Dutch geezer who was also at the session who fully agreed with my sentiments on pulling my pork before then telling me about the lovely expression of appreciation he had sharing the experience with the very attractive Portuguese number who was flicking her bean next to him. Another activity of theirs that perked my interest was a strap on workshop they hosted one evening. Unfortunately though I was so hungover the very idea of what should have been a playful bit of pegging actually instead had the appeal of just being buggered in the hot desert.

 

But of course the most important commendation a festival can be awarded is evident in the crowd it attracts and the vibe they create in its environment. I cannot speak for other Burn events around the world but my experience of the people at Nowhere is that the vast majority of the broad spectrum of demographics, sub cultures and ages, are incredibly friendly, interesting and always up for conversation. I found during the day when I wasn’t at workshops or trying and failing to siesta through the mid afternoon sun my usual routine was to go to each of my favourite Barrio’s, sit down and join in with whatever conversation was taking place in my near vicinity. The attendance is mainly made up of European nationals, surprisingly not that many Spanish but what appeared to me to be a majority of French and/or French speakers with the Brits coming in at a close second, however the common tounge is 95% English speaking. The crowd is also a lot older then what you’d expect from most conventional European festivals, with the age average being at about 30 at a guess. I saw a small amount of kids running around although I didn’t feel there was too much on offer for them to do, I also felt that the heat must be a problem for smaller children but then again if you’re a parent then you know best.

 

As I just said the vibe of the place is almost overwhelmingly liberal, friendly, naked and huggy but I did also encounter a number of rude altercations. One instance was that of a French woman who was clearly having trouble filling her large bottle at the water cube. Since the queue for the cube was getting long I thought I’d be helpful so I stepped in and demonstrated a technique that made the water come out of the pipe a bit quicker, which led her to aggressively mutter something in French before then shouting ‘Stop this! I don’t need your help! I didn’t ask for your help!’ Taken aback I felt almost responded in an equally arsey tone ‘If you don’t want my help then why are you using our camps water cube?’ but these kinds of altercations just aint worth dwelling on. Maybe I should be more mindful of peoples boundaries when it comes to their water bottles in future? Another altercation which I saw which quite upset me was when I was woken up from a snooze I was having in the hammock of my favourite chill space at the Eat your Art Out barrio. A very smiley and friendly Senegalese man who I’d chatted to a few times over the course of the week was being berated by an American woman on the sofa opposite, shouting in a very unnecessarily aggressive way ‘Go away! I don’t consent to talking to you! Leave me alone!’ clearly taken aback, it was the only time I saw that geezer frown all week. He then approached me and very politely asked me for the time… Surely that wasn’t what the American got so pissed off about? Not wanting to judge or jump to rash conclusions, I assumed she must have just been on some ghastly comedown and really didn’t want any interaction. There was also another woman who when I was introduced to her, completely dismissed my existence and told the person that was introducing me that she ‘didn’t consent to meeting any new people’.

 

Now obviously in an environment where sexual energy, self expression and the potential to do whatever you like are highly encouraged, boundaries and consent are vital so that the event doesn’t turn from a hippy love fest to a reenactment of a Viking pillage, but from what I experienced this also meant that people could simply use the rule to defer on general social etiquette. That being said the appeal of Nowhere and other burn events is that it is a safe place for complete abandonment of real world sensibilities, whether this being having to wear clothes or in the cases I just described – talking to strangers. I wont let those experiences in anyway hinder my good memories because it really does take a lot to offend me and to be honest I don’t really have any interest in meeting people that our wound up that way either so if anything they were doing me a favor.

 

But from what I heard from a lot of seasoned Burners the close-knit community of Nowhere makes it one of the favored events on the Burn calendar. I bumped into a fellow member of the Bangface Hardcrew one afternoon who had brought a bottle of acid to the festival and was kindly gifting it out to everyone who needed it – no matter where I am in the world my Hardcrew family will always provide. I mentioned there was some folk in my camp who were after a dose and to repay his I offered him a few beers and a chat. We got talking about all the characters we had met throughout the week, I mentioned about one of the standardly naked men who apparently had arrived at the festival packing no clothes whatsoever was Infact a Belgian politician in the real world and he mentioned about one particularly fiery individual at the Eat Your Art out Barrio who laid in to him for accepting a meal in exchange for all the acid he had sorted them out with over the week. I knew exactly whom he was talking about as this person had been working the gate when I was doing a greeters shift one afternoon.

 

When I first met them they refused a hug, didn’t like the question ‘where are you from’ and apparently seemed to consider humor a form of commerce. I wont risk assuming their gender because I’d be amazed if this person was to follow the standard gender binary. They were quick to pull any of us up on anything we said that they felt may have been problematic as well as also pointing out one or two things in the programme they also didn’t like. There was one hilarious moment though when someone who was driving too fast towards the gate was met by them running out to them, pulling their driver door open like a GTA style car jacking and shouting ‘are you an asshole?’ to them. But to be truthful I really warmed to this person and found them quite funny. It’s a bit sad because people who follow such social political dogma so closely such as this person would never consider being friends with someone like me because they’d find me too upsetting. My ethos to life is simply ‘We aint here for long so have a laugh, don’t take anything too seriously, be nice to one another, keep the place tidy and if you can try and tidy up a bit whilst you’re here then that’s great’ Theirs is usually more regimented. Does make me wonder how such personalities go about their daily life. Do they just walk around constantly getting upset by life’s relentless injustices? Regardless, they really made me laugh during my shift and we probably need more people like that in society as we do at Nowhere to keep our arses in gear.

 

 

I mentioned earlier that throughout the week I never felt the urge to score any drugs or try to seduce any women. This was until I was told that Friday nights are traditionally known as ‘Acid Fridays’ where participants all drop acid and go crazy for the evening. Whilst talking to the gorgeous French lady I had befriended who was in the middle of a welfare shift, she told me that she’d worked the witching hour shift on said night last year and told me of the number of freak outs and incidents ranging from the naked guy who walked off into the mountains, to having break up fights and try and talk sense into people losing their minds. Waking up with a spring in my step I thought it be rude not to get involved. After an afternoon of wondering around I thought I’d cool off in the welfare tent where I bumped into Reem, a mutual friend of my dear pal Michelle back home, a very spiritual Arabic girl who I spent a lot of time talking to about fate and our relationship with our very special friend. It was then that I realized she was accompanied by the girl who all week I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off of. I first saw her sleeping on a bed in my Barrio one afternoon. Lying there all unshaven and topless, spread out all elegant and delicate like some rare desert treasure. ‘Who are you?’ I thought to myself. Not wanting to be creepy I had to force myself away from watching her sleep, but whenever I would see her about I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. She had the most beautiful wide brown eyes and at first I thought her complexion meant she might be Spanish, a younger girl then myself who I put as late teens/early 20’s. As the week progressed I felt like I should really approach her if not for anything else but to apologies for constantly staring at her because she was so beautiful. The only other interaction I had with her all week was during a delightful workshop of laughter yoga, whilst stopping for a water break I offered her a swig from my bottle. She took a gulp and stared straight into my eyes with a primal intensity and then over emphasized her gulp of the water before handing the bottle back to me. There was something very lustfully provocative about the action. It’s really not often your humble narrator gets smitten by a bird but I definitely was now.

 

So there she was in the welfare tent standing over me whilst I tried to stop myself trying to explode from the heat. Saying her goodbyes to Reem then staring straight into me again with a very serious look of concentration on her very pretty face, her expression then turned to a beautiful smile ‘I like you!’ she said and then gave me a cuddle. Once she left I got Reem to give me a bit of a down low on her. She was Dutch, which was a bonus because of my profound love of the country and its people and was at the festival with her sister but doing it all autonomously, which again was a turn on as its how I generally do all my festivals and autonomy is just generally sexy in a person. Reem didn’t want to give any further information as she felt that if I knew too much it might disrupt the course of fate. I made it my goal that that night I’d get myself suited and booted, drop a tab of acid and not rest until I found the girl, asked her name and told her that she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

 

Aden very kindly gifted me a tab of acid for the evening’s festivities which I took as an after dinner mint, dressed in my pink suit I hit the playa in search for the Dutch beauty. It was also the Babycham cabaret party that night and I happened to bump into Ariel – my new Canadian friend from the greeters shift who I walked around and watched the first half of the cabaret, which was a wonderful display of the weird, funny, confusing and camp, before I felt I was tripping too hard to even concentrate anymore and went to explore the festival at night. Now I must say as a relatively seasoned festival cosmonaught I felt that Nowhere was at times a hazard to navigate around whilst tripping my tits off. The lack of lights and unpredictable desert terrain made getting lost and falling over a genuine risk, especially considering this tab induced a pretty bright change of contrast in colours and made my perception of distance completely unpredictable.

One instance was in the beautiful art instillation of contrasting neon lights on sticks to the rear of the site. It reminded me of something out of a Studio Ghibli film and every other time I’d visited it during the course of the week it seemed to be a peaceful place where the lights would have a calming effect. On Acid Friday however the place was filled with giggling, hysterical hippies and I found myself completely disorientated in the neon labyrinth, worried that if I wondered too far out of the forest that I’d end up walking the black, baron wasteland alone for the rest of the night. I also found that during the first few hours my trip was so strong that I couldn’t even form sentences in my mind let alone in speech. This was going to be problematic as I thought if I was to actually find the potential love of my life I didn’t know what it was I would do with her when I did. I’d just end up jumbling my sentences and stuttering like a fool, she’d just think I was a total mental. The fellow Hardcrew who had brought the bottle with him to gift out to people mentioned that he was surprised by the amount of people wanting to experiment who hadn’t actually tried the drug before. In my opinion I wouldn’t use Nowhere are a place to start experimenting unless you are in the company of good, sensible friends and have an idea of what it is you are taking. Otherwise though there are plenty of artworks to look at that’ll keep your mind occupied and it was a fun site a mass of people tripping their heads off simultaneously.

 

I spent the entire night making relentless circuits of the festival, stopping only to get top ups of rum cocktails at Babycham and to ask Aden for advice on how to find someone in such a place. ‘Stop searching for something then it usually shows up’ and ‘the playa provides’ were his two sound pieces of advice. The other words of wisdom he laid on me were ‘She could also be in bed’ which as the night wore on I was starting to believe was the case.

 

I don’t know how much distance I covered walking around that desert that night. I spent the entirety of a 12 hour trip rambling around each Barrio dressed in a summer cut pink suit until my bare feet blistered, my calves cramped up and it felt like my ankles were about to shatter under my weight but still I promised myself I would not rest until I told this bird that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. As the night wore on I started to compromise with the initial terms of my plan. If I was to literally not sleep at all until I found her when I did I would be in no form to try and woo her. It also crossed my mind that what if I was to find her and some other bloke had beaten me to her… But I dismissed this thought and felt that if I was considering that I might as well suggest something as irrational as walking off alone into the treacherous mountains that surrounded me.

 

Once the sun had well and truly risen in the sky I swallowed the Zopiclone that Aden had alost kindly gifted me for once I got bored of the trip. After one more lap I decided to have one more dawn dance in front of the art car that looked like a fish (or was it a dragon) which apparently always seemed to be playing Paul Simon’s ‘Diamonds on the souls of her shoes’, I decided to call it a night and found myself a place to sleep. The following day I explained my predicament and plan to some of the lads down at Babycham over a coffee. A fellow Baby Bloomer – who during a workshop where we were asked to express what kind of initial energy we got off each other, told me that he felt that I brought a lot of innocence to the camp… ‘ au contraire’ I thought. He responded to my plan with ‘See! I knew I was right. You do have a sweet innocence about you!’ It was from this I realized that this was probably the most, if not the only romantic gesture I had ever actually devised or gone through with. I finished my coffee walked back towards my barrio, and then saw her sitting there….

 

‘Excuse me, what is your name?’ When she told me I went into one about how I had spent all night walking around just trying to find her so that I could her how beautiful she was. She looked back at me this time those beautiful eyes were now vacant and shallower then before and responded with… ‘Oh… you really shouldn’t have…’

‘Fuck!’ I thought ‘She’s a space cat… typical’ We agreed to meet up later that night but I lacked confidence. Fair enough she’d probably been up tripping all night but expected the reaction to the most soppy cunt thing I’d ever done to be a bit more warming. I later sent a post card to her barrio, suggesting we meet up at Baby Bloomers for 10pm. Later that afternoon I bumped in Reem again, this time sat with a naked couple, we spent the next hour or so rubbing ice cubes on each other. I told her about my experience the night before and the resulting morning. ‘Lose all expectations then you’ll find what you was looking for will happen’ was the advice she left me with and so that’s what I did.

 

Later that night was the Burn ceremony, where a lighthouse that was standing in the middle of the playa was to be burnt to ashes. It was also actually the first time in the 13 year history of the festival that they had been allowed to actually have the ceremony, due to the surrounding flora being so dead and dry and a potential fire hazard. That evening we started the strike of the Baby Bloomers camp and I started to notice that no matter how much water I drank I just didn’t seem to want to piss, it was as if my kidneys had gone on a sabbatical. The result of which started to make me feel quite ill. So whilst waiting for the sun to finally set over the mountains so that the fire precession could commence I thought I’d quickly nip back to camp so that I could put some shoes on my now peeling and blistered feet and finally after several hours of glugging back endless litres of water and electrolytes, use the toilet. On the way back I thought I’d fill my beer cup when in the darkness of the dining area I saw a figure and sure enough there she was, staying true to our agreement, which I had admittedly forgotten about. True to my form though and in my dehydrated state I was in no mindset to be in anyway charming that evening and never felt like I was getting anywhere and I left her to get an early night. She probably went away from the experience just thinking I was some boring weirdo who just kept staring at her all week. But from a personal development point of view I achieved something I’d never really done before. Even a year previous to this I would never had dreamed of approaching an incredibly beautiful girl to tell her what I thought of her, would have dismissed the idea as it would have just made me look like a soppy cunt, but I guess I am a soppy cunt really. I never had higher expectations then just letting my feelings be known and I did that, so I have no real regrets…. I don’t even remember her name.

 

So to summaries Nowhere is a very different type of festival, it struck me as a great opportunity to collaborate and organize with some very creative and interesting people and just generally get involved in a party where a new type of community is possible if not for a week at least. The highlight of the experience for me was working with the Baby Bloomers cam. For Jean to take 40 people who had never been involved in a project such as this before and have us organize and build a very cosy, comfortable and successful camp was nothing short of inspiring. At no point did I ever feel that one of us wasn’t pulling our weight. Whenever the washing up buckets looked like they’d need emptying, someone would be on it. Whenever the camp was looking a bit messy, people would be on tidying it up. During build and strike people were fully involved and not slacking at all. Same goes for the kitchen and the handling of the garbage. But on top of all that my camp mates were all a very friendly, funny and lovely bunch and it was a pleasure to work with all them. Thank you Baby Bloomers!

 

Now don’t get me wrong I wouldn’t recommend it to all my friends. I think the lack of stellar music would put a lot of my friends off, as would the environment that it’s in which as I’ve mentioned several times before is an intense one. The sun is hot, it’s incredibly dusty and at times windy, and the wildlife is also vicious. When I wasn’t getting bitten by ants or mosquitos there were other savage creepy crawlies bighting chunks out of my skin. Also I found the not being able to buy shit a bit of an annoyance, as sometimes I just wanted to have something in particular to eat. Infact the one meal a day lead to my stomach shrinking and me actually losing weight, weight that I didn’t have to lose in the first place. Also although I can fully understand and respect why the event has a list of principles, this at times made me feel like the experience was quite regimented and even though I was in an environment where even the lack of security and perimeter fence added to the impression that anything was possible and anything could happen the community seemed to lack the sense of anarchy that I have grown up with mostly through the Bangface community. None of these are in anyway damming criticisms though as I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and I can fully understand why a lot of people get really absorbed by the Burner community. It’s very welcoming and open and the ethos of everyone organizing it on an equal playing field is really inspiring, also the anything goes atmosphere and principle of radical self expression make for an environment where people can truly lose themselves and disconnect from reality. It’s an event where the more you put into it the more you get back in return. It was also nice to see fellow camp members have eye opening new experiences. From the geezer who learnt a lot from the consent workshop, to the do young couple who gave the orgy a go. I will be well up for going again but only if I can get a crew of friends behind me. Also it falls just a week after Glastonbury, which I never like to miss, so would probably have to wait for the fall year before getting involved.

 

If you’re quite a hands on person and are interested in getting involved an alternative, creative, liberal and sexy community full of colourful characters, wonderful art projects, well organized, chilled out camp run by very enthusiastic bunch of people and a whole host of unique home made entertainment to keep you busy then I’d recommend Nowhere to you. It’s a challenge that you have to be prepared for but it’s a worthy challenge at that.