My god, what a night...
Despite having gone to bed really late last night, I was anxious to get up and check the Lost & Found to see if they picked up my camera, so that's exactly what I did. No luck. Today was a suitably melancholy day, between the lack of finding my camera and all the people tearing down camp and going home. I checked round the smoldering heap of the Burn (still hot), but no sign of the camera. Spent most of the day hangin' round camp, eventually doing some preliminary prep for packing out and leaving early tomorrow. Checked Lost & Found again before they closed at 6pm. Still no luck. They open tomorrow at 9am, but I was hoping to be gone by then...
At sunset, I started getting anxious about the Temple Burn, seeing lots of pink in the clouds. It was a beautiful sunset. Doug and I headed for the Temple (out on the near edge of the deep playa) as the light was fading. We probably should have gone later, and dressed warmer. After yesterday's dust storm, today was cooler and windier than usual (though still hot in the sunlight), but instead of getting calmer, the weather got worse after dark today. The wind was strong and steady (still is), and it just got colder and colder as we waited in anguish for the Burn to begin. We did get front row seats, not that that was such a big deal anyway...
The Burn itself was ridiculous, and another true test of endurance. The Temple took forever to burn, and I know it wasn't just me, because the rest of the crowd got impatient, too. Plus, it was getting colder and colder, and the perimeter was too far for us to really benefit from the heat of the Burn. Finally, after two forevers, the Temple collapsed, the perimeter was released, and the crowd surged in toward the burning rubble to warm up. And then things got worse.
First, it began to drizzle a bit. That's right, rain - in the desert. In and of itself, not such a big deal, but it was cold, and suddenly the dust kicked up and we were back to whiteout. The cold was making the fire very hard to take advantage of, and Doug and I were anxious for some respite from the enduring experience of the Temple Burn - which, I forgot to mention, was noticeably quieter and more solemn than the Man Burn (at least until people started getting impatient), with no fireworks or explosions.
Let me tell you, the trip back from the Temple remains was an ordeal. Awesome, exciting, scary, and terrifying. At first I could see the big tower (Babylon) to orient myself, but as soon as we started walking, the dust got thicker and rendered us effectively blind. At night. On the deep playa. We tried to walk in a straight line, partially following elusive lights that appeared and disappeared on the periphery of vision. Eventually a helpful man materialized in the dust and helped to reorient us, directing us towards a red beacon we had sorta been following, but wasn't sure if it was moving, or was even really there in the first place...
We made it back to "civilization" from the deep playa, but things didn't get easier. It didn't help that many camps that would have made good landmarks had been torn down, and others were in a process of deconstruction that made them look more like military zones or construction sites or something. Add to that the thick dust and the dark, and the fact that moronic people had taken all the street signs the night before as souvenirs, and you can see how it would be very confusing. Luckily, a girl formed out of the chaos and reoriented us again. We headed off in the right direction.
After narrowly avoiding being impaled on a renegade piece of uncapped rebar sticking out of the ground - it was really hard to tell where the borders of the "streets" were... - and passing a beacon that somehow kept managing to get ahead of us, despite being stationary, we finally made our way back to camp. It's still dusty, it's still windy, and some kind of vehicle just drove suspiciously close by my tent. No condition to do anymore packing tonight, so I just gotta get some sleep and see how things turn out. Who knows, maybe the gates'll be closed tomorrow and noone will be allowed out. I have to say, though tonight's experience will be one for the records, I'm about ready to get out of this desert, even if it means more days of exhausting driving. And that's not to mention getting a shower...
A damn shame about that camera, though...
