Where there are people like us?
This is a question, I commonly ask myself. Most proper travellers have been forced abroad, to continue the lifestyle. Some are hiding! Some forced into sub-standard housing. Some in jail. I got this very interesting email from these folks, who seem to be 'right on it'! I wish them well and hope we can find some suitable companions for them.........

Dear Tash,
Have just been looking at your website. Very interesting, but my main reason for writing to you is to find out where there are people like us?
My husband and I are 49 and 40 respectively and decided to get out of the rat-race 4 years ago. We bought an 10 year old ex-British Rail canteen van and converted it to a camper and drove 22,366 miles all the way to Kathmandu and back in 12mths. It was our honeymoon. If you would like to read about some of it, you can go to David Icke’s website, swallow the first red pill, then click on latest posting/news and scroll down to an article, “Bush and Blair want to find bin Laden, yeah sure they do, a British couple’s story....” I think you might find it most interesting. David is also putting it in his next book, “Alice in Wonderland and the WTC.”
We are strongly against errosion of civil liberties and ID cards, chipping etc, but until more people wake up and make a stand against it all there isn’t a lot we can do to stop it.
The reason for my e-mail is that we have been on the road now for 4 yrs and would love to meet others like us and travel with them. There’s loads of ‘Blue Wrinse Brigade’ members. Those who live in a very expensive motorhome and live on their pensions, and there are a few who have loads of money for one reason or another, but there seems to be few who have to live by ther wits and WORK for their money. they are the type we would like to me. Could you pass some info my way, or alternately pass my e-mail/address/phone no. onto them?
We basically work for agencies for the Summer, then head South out of the UK for the whole Winter. We don’t live in our Sherpa any more, we now have a larger ex-Council Omni minibus, converted for our next trip to Morocco. My husband Alan is a mechanic, so is a very useful person to have around.
Do you know anyone who would like to join us to Morocco. We leave UK 1st week in November. We spent the Winter in Spain last year.
I also supplement our income with some freelance journalism, mainly about our travels. I have had a number of articles published now.
Our address is c/o “Notchett” Bucknall Road, Horsington, Woodhall Spa,
Lincoln, LN10 5ET tel; 0775-2696673 e-mail theproject1998@hotmail.com
Would welcome ANY contacts.
Regards Cindy

Burning Man Festival Nevada, United States.

Burning Man [mainsite] http://www.burningman.com/

Official list of the Burning Man Project: http://www.burningman.com/blackrockcity_yearround/contacts/jrs_lists.html

Thier 'Legal Advice Page' http://www.burningman.com/preparation/event_survival/law_enforcement.html

Location Map: http://www.burningman.com/preparation/maps/reno.gif

Burning Man is a Labor Day gathering/party/festival that began in 1986 with the torching of an 8-foot stick man on San Francisco's Baker Beach. Since 1990 it has been held in the remote Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. For a week, the desert "playa" becomes a canvas for some of the most beautiful, fantastic, and just plain weird art this side of Oz. The festival's centerpiece now stands 40 feet tall.



Hundreds of people devote much of their lives to the festival's planning -- for little or no monetary gain whatsoever -- and thousands of people travel from all over the world to attend. Experience Burning Man once and you'll understand why.

Visit Nevada's Black Rock Desert at most any time of the year, and you won't find much there - just a barren desert formed by an ancient lake bed. But come around a week before Labor Day, and you're likely to witness a transformation as awe-inspiring as any desert bloom: the creation of Black Rock City, a counterculture metropolis otherwise known as Burning Man.



It's difficult to explain the concept of Burning Man to the uninitiated. Some call it a neo-pagan festival. Others think of it as this generation's Woodstock. In truth, it is neither. Burning Man can really only be defined by experiencing it.

Miles from the nearest town, the thousands of participants must bring everything they will need to survive in the desert. Monetary transactions are not allowed at the festival. The climate is extreme, and creature comforts are minimal limited to what people can construct in a few days from materials they have brought in themselves. The ticket to Burning Man warns that participants risk serious injury or death by attending the event.



But participants assume the risks for the chance to create something extraordinary an ideal society that exists according to its utopian vision, if only for one week. The society is defined by the rules that have been established over the years, and by the feeling of community that develops through shared creative efforts.

Many participants form camps grouped around community projects. Each camp has an interactive element, with open invitations to all who wish to participate. Art, costumes, dancing, and music dominate the playa. In recent years, technology has greatly added to the mix, and this year marks the debut of PlayaNet, a wireless high-speed network that will serve as a festival-wide intranet.



Burning Man is a marriage of art, anarchy and technology. It's a place where hippies, trendy beautiful people, brooding artists, goths and nerds can find something in common.

What impressed was that some of the art is actually good. It's mostly ephemeral - meant to be burned or certainly taken down at the end, but some people with real talent go to BM to show off.

Also impressive is the tremendous effort that goes into the camps and structures. While some just set up a minimalist camp, many camps have impressive structures that clearly were quite some work to set up. People aren't there to camp, they are there to show off what they can make.

Here you see a variety of shots of different camps. This is just a tiny sampling, and not even the most intersting. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of unusual camps. Some built giant towers or other structures



Some people, trying to get a smaller experience within what is now a large town of 15,000, build villages within the Black Rock City. They arrange a large cicular area, get common generators and other facilities and collect a group of camps. The Irrational Geographic Society and its stage are shown here on the right. "Drano" city on the left.

More strange camps, including one (Holmes on the Range) with three naked women on a giant penis. Who can resist taking a photo of that? A lot of the experience of BM is going around, enjoying the camps, and going into them, and meeting the people, perhaps offering to help out. In fact, in line with the BM "No spectators" ethic, this is almost mandatory.



All the streets were arranged in a hemicircle around the Man. In the center of that was a big cicular area called the Center camp, which included the one cafe and a stage in the middle, and some of the most established camps around it.

Near the end of the weeklong culture jam, participants burn a giant wooden effigy in a cathartic celebration that gives the event its name. And then the ephemeral city disappears, leaving no trace in the desert.

Collected links here, some really cool photography, check it out. All makes me want to go .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ... ..... ....... one day!

Abobe 'Special feature on Burning Man

Adobe Panorama Day1
Adobe Panorama Day2
Adobe Panorama Day3

Burning Man Message Board 2002: http://bbs.burningman.com/

The Photographic book, 'Burning Man' from Amazon.

Black Rock Desert Poem by tanya

Black Rock Desert was the destination,
Headed for a weekend of good times and recreation.
What I got was so much more -
But, wait, we're just at the door -
These lessons take time
To infiltrate your mind.

So we'll start from the beginning:
In my head thoughts were spinning
As I gazed at the mountains afar
>From the window of my sister's red suburu car.
All that I knew of the event
Were second-hand stories from a book that had been lent.
This book, along with my ticket, to me my sister had sent,
A sort of you're-graduated-so-now-you-can-really-learn-about-life present.

She told me they call it Burning Man,
Named for the tall neon figure in the sand.
"They will burn him Saturday night," she said,
and off through the desert we sped.
After Gerlach and Empire we finally reached the place.
Turning onto the playa with my sister's smiling face,
She popped in Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians
And, laughing, together we sang like crazy demons.
Greeted by sparkling glittered insane ravers,
Drove to 8 o'clock and feet to meet our new neighbors.

My first visions didn't go past my eyes,
Which were sun and travel weary from the drive.
It wasn't really until that night
That I completely took in the sight
Of a beautiful, glowing, magical community
That laughed in the face of a made-up reality.

And after an evening of riding double
On a bicycle that tended to wobble,
Sitting in a mushroom tower,
Feeling its tremendous power,
Smoking some hash,
Visiting a shrine for Johnny Cash,
Making way for the motorized couch,
Waiting out the rain in an Elvis tent, I crouched
Thinking Toto, this is nothing like home,
And biking across the playa we roamed,
Amazed by the sculptures of chrome.
We cheered at the Thunderdome,
Got lost in a maze,
And I knew I was about to reach a new phase.
This experience was going to teach me about community,
About people, about life, about love, about beauty.
And that it did in many ways
Through energized nights and dusty days.

The people I met were what made it all work -
This experience and how it changed my whole outlook.
I first encountered the Cyberbuss folk
Who lifted the world with the energy every time they spoke.
They were friendly and offered a game of Rock-Swivel & Bob,
So we camped next to them and added to the mob.
Their names have escaped me but their faces remain,
Except Sam, Rob, and Gamitone ­ I remember their names.

Others I met under the Central Camp dome
While sipping on frothy cappuccino foam.
Like the suspicious man who was writing to his boyfriend:
"I'm sorry to tell you, but this relationship must end."
He was sitting at a table, smoking a cigarette, and then
He smiled and finally set down his money-sign pen.

There was Rupert, who shared his nitrous with us
As we sat on the seats in his comfy RV bus.
On his hat was a patch of black and white thread,
"Give me head till I'm dead," it said.
His wife Sunny was her own rockstar
As she danced in the glowing ejaculating car.

And then there was Shad, who introduced me to these two -
I think he impacted me more than he knew
Through our long chats under the mid-morning sun
And the evenings spent together, full of good times and fun.
He had a smile that made my heart flutter,
My knees go weak and my words begin to stutter.
And before long in his arms I was held,
Into the deep pool of his eyes I fell,
And waking together to the lull of the wind,
We wondered what the coming day would bring.

Outside was my sister Jamie -
Beautiful, intelligent, the star of the family.
She was recovering from her own personal tragedy,
Pushed down by a man she had loved madly.
Almost done healing, she had learned so much -
This experience, together, brought us closer and in touch.

As we fought through traffic to get back to the city,
We discussed the experience and felt pity
That the beauty of people ­ their heart and their soul ­
Can so easily be stifled by our culture's control.
And we vowed we would not return to the norms of society,
We would instead live in the world of a true reality
Full of love and compassion and people who would not shriek
When we finally decide to release our inner freak.

CYBERBUSS
Cyberbuss will be making its 6th trip to Burning Man this year. It is well rested after a year off last year.

Cyberbuss / Burning Man Shockwave slide show: http://www.cyberbuss.com/cyberwestern/takeaction0.htm

Cyberbuss / Burning Man 2000 Shockwave slide show: http://www.cyberbuss.com/bman00/bman2000.htm

Cyberbuss Photographic Documentary: http://www.cyberbuss.com/bus.htm

There is nothing like being here inside the Blue Burning Ham (CYBERBUSS sister buss), 26 miles from the closest town out in the vast Black Rock Desert with steaming, hot, bubbling geysers just a four minute freezing cold walk away. These geysers blow continuos hot steady streams of steamy water into the cold dry air. The water trickles down natural steps into muddy pools. Day and night us fREaKy, muddy buss people tip toe across frosty rocks and plunge our naked bodies into hot mud baths surrounded by eternal fields of cow dung.



We take cover back in the buss where fantastic meals are cooked to perfection, we shuffle around one table where you can hear the constant clatter of plastic cooking gear and embarrassing old, hard-to-tell stories that stream from us like the hot steamy water spraying from the colorful geysers.

In this clean, simple, pure Nevada environment we live largely. All the luxuries in Reno could not surpass our bussy comforts. The fluid, jazzy sounds of Chet Baker, Stan Getz and anonymous Bossa Nova tapes fill the cozy air.



At night we are greeted by a low rising spooky moon and whimpering, whiny howls of a far off coyote pack. The stars stare down on us in a strong, bright fashion exempt from city haze. Yes its wonderful to be on the buss.
c y b e r sAM

Cyberbuss Desert Panorama :
After leaving San Francisco the Cyberbuss crew camped at a lake overnight before heading over to Burning Man. Here they are in the morning.
http://wrybread.com/gametone/burningman/2000/lake.shtml

On the Cyberbuss :
http://wrybread.com/gametone/burningman/2000/ondabuss.shtml

Brad Templeton's Panoramic Photography:

And....... yet more from the Burning Man Festival. While searching around to see how the Americans do it, I came across this mans work.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/burn.html

I think that these paroramas of the event are particularly wonderful. All shot from towers, erected for the purpose and using a Canon EOS D30 digital camera.

Completly wicked work!! Here, the chap goes into the technical details: http://pic.templetons.com/brad/pano/about.html