Hundreds of cars and motorhomes stranded in a thick sticky mudtens of thousands of people muddy and trapped in a great mud pit…: it is the post apocalyptic image that no one expected him to leave the Burning Manmacro-festival whose keys are fire and desert, all muddy after some unexpected rains.

The plain of the great Nevada desert where it is celebrated has become impracticable for vehicles… and almost impassable on foot: there are those who pull makeshift skis even to go to the bathroom. The problem, some festival-goers have explained, is that “it is an eminently clayey ground and it becomes very, very slippery.” They further add that “gets worse all the more you step on it and the more vehicles try to pass.” “It’s like kneading,” they say.

“A mass exodus…nightmare”

Thousands of attendees —between five and seven thousand, it is estimated— have challenged orders to take shelter until it is safe to move around the area. In a complicated”mass exodus”, explain the local authorities. And those who have managed to get out of the desert say that it has been “truly nightmare”after having to kneel and dig with your own hands in the mud to free their cars. In fact, it is investigated a death. President Biden has been briefed.

However, for most the party continues: splashing, dancing in the mud —music is not lacking—, celebrating every ray of sun, cheering on the rainbows… the good spirit it keeps. Hugs are not lacking, human warmth. Nor, of course, the photos that flood social networks… even with mud up to the eyebrows.

‘Burning Man’ started as a gathering in San Francisco in 1986, today it is one of the most famous festivals in the world

yes start to become scarce electricity, they tell us, so ration generators and fuel. For the rest, they are “caring for each other“. “We have food, provisions, shelter”, they have indicated. So, although the veterans of this Burning Man which is something never seen —”at least in the last twenty years”, one of them adds— they are applying that of “To bad weather, good face”.