Since the awesome music in the art car I was in changed for something questionable when they fixed their electricity/battery problems, so I got out and headed for the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock clubs. There was some decent dancing music, which I listened to for a while, and eventually headed up back for my tent, being suitably pooped.
After a few hours of sleep, I headed out to check out the playa, the man's remains (still hot), and the temple of stars, which was being prepped for its burn that night. I happened to show up when its designer was giving a small speech about the temple and the ones he had built the previous years.
I then biked around, did the two inner rings from 2 to 6, chatted with the firemen and the medical care folks and was relieved to learn that there hadn't been any major accidents this year. Most people are tearing down their camps right now, so there isn't a whole lot more to see.
I'm at playa info now, leeching some power :) but apart from writing this and offloading my pictures to my hard drive, that's going to be about it: the satellite dish uplink has been taken down apparently.
Since I'm feeling rather tired right now (got woken up a bit early by music that made it through my ear plugs), I think right now is a jolly good time for a nap :)
(later)
After doing a quick tour of the other half of the ring, talking with the medical staff at 3 o'clock, and another quick nap before dinner, I headed out for the temple of stars, which was noticeably harder now that it was dark, and they had taken away base landmarks like the man. Bastards! :)
I thought I had been reasonably careful when leaving my bike. I knew that finding it after the burn would be hard due to another landmark being gone, the crowd, and hundreds of bikes that would be left behind, but after the burn, and despite having used my compass to get some markers and help to find my bike on the way back, it was actually quite hard to find it, especially after I realized that the crane I parked my bike next to, wasn't the only one, and that some of them had started moving. Argh...
Anyway, the burn itself was very similar to the temple of joy from two years ago (same kind of construction out of cut out wood), so once it caught fire, it went in flames instantly, sending lots of heat towards us, despite the considerable distance we were from the fire. The small problem, is that they had used 4 pillars made out of steel for the base of the wooden structure (and to make sure it wouldn't collapse under people's weight when it was open for visits). The steel melted a bit at the top, but the bottom stayed sturdy, and basically was still standing an entire hour later with everyone around the fire dying to go run towards it. The rangers had a really hard time keeping people back until the firemen finally resolved to tying a cable around what was left of the burning structure, and winching it down with a truck.
Once the remains were down, it was a bit like the previous night, with a sea of art cars surrounding you, you having even less of an idea where you were, and which direction was home (to be helpful, people had taken "souvenirs", in the form of street signs, which made navigation just that more difficult at night on top of that :)
Since many people had torn down their installations on sunday, there were not nearly as many places with music that night (not counting art cars), so after a quick tour, and enjoying random things on the playa, like a firework show, I went back to my camp to tear my stuff down and box it up. Unfortunately, after that, I figured that it'd be tempting fate to fall asleep somewhere, as the odds that I'd be up in time to go to the airport for my 07:00 departure, were not high.
So I did the next best (or worst) thing: I figured I'd just take my stuff and wait at the airport "gate", where some structure had been setup, and just fall asleep there, so that the pilot could kick me in the morning :)
Unfortunately, I didn't account for most of the airport having been torn down, and no such structure being left. I tried to fall sleep behind a small trailer, and I might have "slept" in stretches of 20mn, but when I started very weird, uncontrollable dreams, and when I got up with clear signs of hypothermia, I borrowed a bike, and headed back to the city for the closest fire I could find, so that I could warm myself up. I then hung out in center camp to finish typing this, posting it (wireless and satellite uplink came back up), and going back to the airport at the outer edges of the city. Hopefully the other folks will be on time so that I don't have to wait in the cold again...
Ok, it's 06:47, time to head out.