An Innocent Abroad by Lonely Planet

Author:Lonely Planet [George, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743605899
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Published: 2014-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Man to Man

Jeff Greenwald

On a drizzly evening in August 2004, five world-wandering authors sat behind a long table in the Metropolitan Ballroom of San Francisco’s Pan Pacific Hotel, discussing our lives and careers as travel writers. The conversation, with Tim Cahill, Jan Morris and Isabel Allende, plus myself and moderator Michael Shapiro, was lively. But I especially enjoyed the Q&A session afterwards—particularly one seemingly innocuous question: What’s the most exotic place you’ve ever been?

I almost tripped over that one. Images of far-flung destinations paraded past my mind’s eye: a female lama’s remote Himalayan sanctuary; the Great Mosque of Djenné, with its termite-hill towers; an obscure tea bar in Esfahan.

But when it came down to it, there was only one honest answer: The most exotic place I’d ever been was only seven hours from San Francisco, by car.

This story is not about my first time going to Burning Man, although that first time – in 2000 – was memorably traumatic. I was plagued by nightmares a week in advance. Horror stories of the crowds, the dust, the noise and the Porta-Potties tormented my agoraphobic soul. I would be ride-sharing to the Black Rock Desert with a woman I barely knew, and camping next to her Subaru Outback in my lightweight backpacking tent. The sandstorms, I’d been warned, might shred it like Romano cheese….

Arriving at the fringe of the playa, we were met by naked greeters in body paint and clown noses. ‘Welcome home,’ they declared – a phrase that, wherever one hears it, seems to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We parked and set up our small camp within the vast semi-circle of tents and RVs and theme camps surrounding Center Camp’s Big Top. Banners snapped in the hot, dry wind. A long promenade led from Center Camp to the iconic Man: a forty-foot-high plywood figure with its arms angled slightly from its sides. On the penultimate night of the festival – five days hence – The Man would raise his arms skyward, and be immolated in a pyrotechnic blaze.

Wandering among the dusty avenues and diverse camps, I came upon a man whose worldly possessions were spread out upon a broad Turkish carpet: a yard sale. There were picture books and cutlery, a jump rope, a vintage toaster, juicers, boots, hula hoops and a beautiful old world globe. I picked up the globe and found Ceylon, East Pakistan, Republic of the Congo and Tibet.

‘How much?’

The Burner looked at me in surprise. ‘Take it, man. It’s yours.’

This was my introduction to the ‘gift economy,’ one of the signature delights of Burning Man. But even the term economy is misleading; it’s not a barter system. Gifts are given freely, out of inventive generosity. Payback is rarely expected. Still, it’s good to have something to offer, and I did: fragrant chunks of frankincense, an exotic tree sap from Yemen.

Clutching the globe in my arms, I couldn’t help but appreciate the metaphor. It was then, I’m sure, that my ‘playa-phobia’ evaporated. During the coming years I would

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