Already covered in dust, we arrived on the playa and hoped to find our camp site, to start setting our stuff up as quickly as possible.

The location of our camp site wasn’t clear though, so we had to wait for the arrival of one of the camp organizers to identify our lot.

We waited for an hour or two, some of us headed over for one of the early camps that were already operational: Celestial Bodies, a Burning Man institution and one of the camps that not only held a few events, but served alcoholic drinks all week.

We made some quick connections with the guys there, and by the time we had to head to our camp, I was already tipsy.

While their signature PlayaCosmo is not that strong, the impact of alcohol on this elevation of 4000 feet, and in the dry hot air, is pretty immediate.

Our camp, called the Tropical Tree house, is conveniently located in the ‘gaybourhood’, the queer quarter of Black Rock City.

The city itself is set up like a huge clock, in a big circle.

While the man stands in the middle of the playa, surrounded by over hundred art installations, the city is set up in circular streets named from A to L around it, from the 2 o’clock to 10 o’clock positions.

Major arteries intersect those streets and help you finding your orientation, indicating your position on the clock.

Our camp site was located at 7.15 and E.

It is a pretty ingenious design to orient everyone on the playa, knowing all ‘time’ streets will bring you over to the Man, while the alphabetical streets run in big circles.

Most of the sites were still empty. Some Burners had arrived as early as Wednesday and been setting up since then, but most people were just about to arrive.

So Black Rock City was just about to come into existence as we were setting up camp with thousands of other early Burners.

 

We started to unload our truck and quickly broke up into teams. My camp mates who had been here the years before had it all under control.

There are Tim and Tom, a San Francisco couple and our Burner veterans, who have been there four or five times and have most of the stuff like the tents, shades, carpets, and have organized the tickets, the camp site, the early arrival passes, the food and so many more little details that I can’t name them all. Tom, whose playa name is Sawyer, quickly became the camp Mama.

Then there’s Brandon, my friend from San Francisco whom I know for seven years now (and whom I met in Tokyo), who introduced me to the camp and got me on board.

There’s Warren and Matt, a couple from Oakland, also two playa virgins, who joined the camp, and Craig, the designer and builder of our Tropical Treehouse installation.

He also brought Mel into the group, a system admin who luckily joined us when an initial camp mate had to back out at the last minute. So the eight of us made up the tropical tree house camp!

Once we unloaded the truck, Craig started to measure and construct the basic foundations for the tree house, two trees with crow’s nests and a suspension bridge.

Meanwhile we started to map out the campsite with the plastic floors, and started to set up our shade structures. As we’re in the middle of the desert, shade is vital for the tents…

The amount of stuff is incredible… tents, blankets, shade structures, poles, stakes, chairs, air mattresses, the tree house stuff, the food… the bikes… our U-haul was filled, and now it lay all out on the playa.

We progressed pretty well, and soon the two trees were standing, the crow’s nests installed and the suspension bridge set up, while we kept constructing the six shade structures.

The sun sets pretty early around 7.30, so we had to hurry up. Unfortunately, one of our trees fell over, luckily without hurting anyone, and we brought the other one down when trying to resurrect the first.

But priority was now shelter for the night, so we focussed on our tents, and had everything ready just when night fell.

After a quick dinner, we took our bikes to a first ride over the playa, to the Man that stands in its center, and to the temple, that was still being constructed.

 

A lot of art installations were already up and some art cars were zipping back and forth through the night playa, but my Burner veterans assured me, that this was a quiet night, as most people would only arrive the next day.

I was glad I brought some warm stuff, that desert night was cold – on the bike and in the tent. But generally I slept surprisingly well on my air mattress, with the sleeping bag over both ears.

Come morning, we started to set up the tree houses again, and this time all went smooth and fast. Once this was done and secured, we needed to focus on the deco, after all we needed to give a bid of a tropical atmosphere to our trees…

 

The evaporation ponds – necessary as no used water is to be dumped onto the playa in order to leave no trace – doubled as tropical ponds. Soon, monkeys swung from the bridge, and by the evening we were ready for our guests.

As Burning Man is a communal effort – and no money transitions are allowed on the playa with a few exceptions as buying ice – camps are encouraged to give something to the community.

In our case, we would hold three events: A MaiTai party with free sarongs for the first 100 guests on Sunday evening, Nooner Coladas on Wednesday at noon and a sober iced coffee social with Buntini bun cakes on Saturday.