Africa Burn Therapy: 8 days in the South African Desert – More than a festival

Wow, where do I even begin? It’s now almost two weeks ago since we returned from Tankwa Karoo, the desert in South Africa, were we got lost for 8 days in the dust, experiencing my first BURN – a festival, way more than just a big party.

If you followed me and know me you probably know that I’ve been to a lot of events. You understand, that I’m not a person that easily glorifies but has a critical eye on everything, displaying my experiences with real emotions. So take this is a heartful honest reflection                  .

Arrival with Intention: From Detox to Radical Freedom

Before the Burn I did a 6 weeks detox: No meat, no alcohol, clean living, preparing and integrating an Ayahuasca Retreat in Peru. So I came with fresh energy, am open mind to the burn. I came Intentionally unprepared.  A festival in the desert without signal, any outside connection and the promise of radical freedom – sounded like an amazing idea to me.

Our group lead Freddy organized our transfer from Capetown tot he desert: Us, our group of 13 Germans, most coming for the first time. Some friends for decades, some total strangers.

You need know that the Burn is not a conventional festival. There is no line up, no bars, no food trucks, no running order. The people are the event – and this comes in many ways: Music, workshops, community, creativity, craziness, absurditity and a absolutely wholesome colourful diversity. A concept I wasn’t familiar with but that really flashed me from the day we arrived.

Inside Our Camp: The Garden of Weeden

Our own camp, „Garden of Weeden“ that was already being worked on for 3 weeks before we arrived (Cheers to Greg and his South African Team) was an oasis in the desert having: Warm showers, a huge chillout lounge, its proper camp stage, an ice machine, a huge barrel of “free” Tequila, comfy tents, free blunts (you have to live up to the name) and its own vehicles with which you can cruise over the “Playa”.

The Playa is the vast open space outside of the camps that are ordered in a circular shape where the artworks (another important part of the burn) are set up and the big stage vehicles of all camps go out to blast out an epic part all around the clock.

Garden of Weeden had like 90 people and real connections were formed.

The Playa: Art, Music, and Movement in the Dust

All Camps are absolutely handcrafted with love and you can really feel how much energy is flowing into their conception and set up. Created to serve for the community: Everybody gives something to make each others experience wholesome – One of the core spirits of the Burn. There was a camp for free pancakes, one for South African Braii, one for free sunset champagne, breathwork sessions, bloody marries, draft beers, an Italian pop-up restaurant, a cuddle container, a postcard service (The Burning Mail), epic sunrise raves, and many more. I think there’s few places in the world where people use their creative freedom so much to create such unique things.

The first two days I was just floating around from camp to camp, from party to party, overwhelmed by the friendliness and openness, that people radiated.

Letting Go: A Necessary Emotional Breakthrough

But something inside me hadn’t caught up yet. To be honest: I was still in work mode. Focused, tense, not fully surrendered. And I realised I wasn’t alone in that. The Burn attracts people who live intense lives. Who are deeply committed, also to their careers come here searching for release. Nobody at the Burn talks about work. It doesn’t matter who you are there or what you do. What matters is that you are here and a part of it. In your raw, unfiltered way.

At Burn you create the experience that you want. If that means meditating on a rock for 8 days, running in circles through the desert or 72h raving – it’s the path you chose.

Be Whoever You Are: Authenticity Without Judgment

There are no filters, nobody’s judging. Everybody’s appreciating you in all your uniqueness. And the costumes? Whatever you wear, you look great because you are great.

This is something I’ve realised when I was dancing into the African Sunset on the third day when incredible emotions overwhelmed me – I cried out of joy. It cracked me open. All of us deserve to be here, simply because we are humans. A deep sense that you are already enough, exactly as you are. This is Burn. This is the essence that makes it so much more than a festival. An experience. An outer and inner connection. A feeling. A therapy.

There’s nothing like standing in the desert seeing the sun set and rise. You need to be present in that moment and feel it. No photos, videos and stories will ever do justice.

From this moment on I fully let myself go and the rest of the week passed like a movie. A true blockbuster with inspiring actors, in a Hollywood-like setting, a breathtaking storyline and an epic soundtrack. We laughed to tears, danced for days and burnt all what we want to leave behind.

There’s nothing like standing in the desert seeing the sun set and rise. You need to be present in that moment and feel it.

A group of strangers became friends. Insecurity turned into trust, and trust turned into self-love.

From Re-Integration to Transformation: Live the Burn Reality

The Africa Burn was one of the most powerful experiences of my life, a new peak in many forms that and made me realise, that perfection does exist and it’s already there, in each of us in our uniqueness. A wonderful feeling of being great as you are that I want to carry out from now on and share it with everybody.

On the last day I said to Skye, a wonderful soul in our camp, that it will take me some time to re-integrate into the “real world”. She told me, rather than re-integrating, you should integrate what you learnt from the Burn and make this your reality. And she’s right.

So if you’re curious, if you want to feel it, not just hear about it, come to the next Burn.

And yes, you can bet 100% that I’ll be back!

What a magic. Now let’s talk about logistics.

If you’re from Europe or the States, getting to South Africa is maybe not the closest ride. Surprisingly, coming from Brasil only took me 7 hours from São Paulo with a direct flight.

From Europe there’s a lot of layovers in Abu Dhabi or Dubai with Emirates, that makes the flight much cheaper than a layover. (I saw them going one way for around 400 USD).

Cape Town is an awesome place, too. Perfect for pre- and de-compression how you would say it in a Burn slang. I arrived one week before and stayed two weeks after. Enjoying the hikes, gastronomy and beaches.

As the Burn is in April, it’s already autumn in South Africa, that means, weather is a bit of a gamble. We had huge luck. 30 degrees during the day, 13 at night. I can only imagine how bad it can get when the desert is getting muddy and damp. Hopefully, you’ll have the same luck as us.

I’ll write in a seaprate post about how life as a Digital Nomad is in Cape Town. Quite a blast to be honest. Affordable, diverse, beautiful but with some obvious downsides.

But let’s stay with the Burn. Freddy, our “lead”, organized a shuttle that brought us to the Tankwa Karoo and back again. That one was around 110 US = 100 € per person. If you rent a car you’re definitely faster. It took us 6 hours through the desert, our friends with a rental car arrived in around 3,5.

For accommodation at Burn you have various options: Either you “buy into” one of the camps and use the infrastracture that they have set up for you, you come with your own RV or you classically set up your own tent and bring everything you need.

Buying in is obviously the most pricy alternative, but also this various a lot from camp to camp. I’ve talked to many people and ours, the “Garden of Weeden” was one of the most expensive ones. For 8 days, 2 times food per day, hot showers, snacks, free water, tequila and blunts I’ve paid 1,500 USD.

On top came the tents, mattresses and sheets, where they charged us another 500 USD. We technically bought the tents and can use them for the rest of our lives when we come back to Burn. Garden of Weeden was for sure high end, but pretty sure for a camp for 500 USD all in you also get a good experience – just consider that there you probably have to build up the camp, clean up and take shifts through out the festival. In any case you need to know somebody that brings you in. Some camps, like “Tulpa” even have an application form if you actually fit the group. Pretty interesting. Maybe I check out another camp in the next year, although I really became close with many of the souls in the “GoW”.

Technically, there is no money in the desert. That means you also cannot buy yourself a drink if you’re thirsty or something. Everything you want needs to be provided buy your camp or brought by yourself. We bought alcohol (beers and vodka), as well as mixers and snacks. I would have needed less snacks in hindsight, the two meals were always enough. A must have is also a water bottle, the costumes (the fancier the better, you can get them also in capetown), flashy lights for the night, a head torch and everything else that you need for a proper rave in the desert in Burning man style. I think on all of this I’ve spent another 800 USD. The tickets to the Burn is more a solidaric share and costs around 120 USD.

So you can sum it up, the week was around 3,000 USD, excluding the flights. Therefor it was an “all inclusive experience”, worry free through out and my working share was limited to making a salad on the last day. You chose your experience.

Learnings for my next Burn – Tips for you

More costumes! Due to my limited space coming just with my two backpacks from Brasil, I couldn’t bring a lot of styles and also I was insecure what would be cool to wear. The summary afterwards: Nothing’s too flashy, too fancy, too much. You can really get fully creative. A hydration pack (“Camelbak”) is also a great idea, as you need the water (yes, the desert is dry) and carrying a bottle around is annoying and you easily loose it. (Happened two times to me).

Besides that? I’m not sure. Everything was perfect as it was and I think it’s a bliss to enter the Burn a little unprepared, but fully open to all that’s gonna happen.

And with this I also want to finish my little post. If you have any questions about it, just hit me up!

Cheers

Nico