Just at nightfall, when everyone was still in the camp and getting ready, we got a playa gift of a special sort. A group of six or seven people came into our camp and started to sing a beautiful song about a love story to us. Just like that.

It was their gift to the playa. They had met only days before and decided that they would move around Black Rock City together to bring their music to us.

It’s moments like this that make Burning Man so extraordinary. You don’t expect anything, and five minutes later you’re grinning ear to ear, having received something as special as a short night time performance by a beautiful vocal group. It’s the perfect way to start into the night.

We decided to give the Crisco Disco a chance and hopped onto their art car, for a tour around the playa visiting the different artworks, in a trip that was supposed to last maybe two hours….

We crossed the camps with thumping beats, and rode over the playa, making a couple of stops at different sites for a couple of minutes, enough to have a glimpse and take some pics, but not really to experience the art.

The kid who was supposed to open and close the entry to the art car (his playa name: Salacious) was either busy engaging in bodily pleasures, or too stoned to operate it, so at one stop I just slid under the cord…

I had wanted to take maximum time with this peace, a huge cone-like structure composed out of many little white cubes, that changed colors to the rhythm of classical music. It was a beautiful sight. One look back, and I realized the art car had not even stopped and was on its way to another stop.

Fair enough, I wanted to spend some time with these beautiful cubes.

From there I just wandered around the playa at night, visiting the many art installations, walking through colorful gates over to a library with beautiful books filled with messages from other Burners, to the enormous two wooden statues embracing each other.

I can’t really start to describe it here. I hope the pictures captured some of it… I just wandered around for hours… what seemed like maybe an hour or two turned out to be four. Time is non-existing in Black Rock City.

When I came home, I met a few of the others. Apparently I got lucky: the art car broke down soon after I lost them and they were stuck on the playa with the ever same song…

I waited for dawn to break and climbed up onto the treehouse, and then sleep outside in my sleeping back. What a night. Your body may be totally tired, but your mind is so awake from all the impressions.