WE WERE bobbing and glowing just past the field of psychedelic mushrooms in the middle of the desert when a swarm of eight blue jellyfish advanced on us. Suddenly our swarm of 14 white jellyfish became a bloom of 22 as we morphed into a bobbing mass of gelatinous zooplankton swaying to the distant sound of a Balkan Gypsy band.
Incredible! In a sea of 10 000 people in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a desert in the middle of the longest single stretch of dirt road in South Africa with no towns on it, the only 22 jellyfish for miles around managed to find each other.
Later that night, sitting around our camp fire, our marine scientist friend Pedro explained that jellyfish are the prime indicators of the ill health of our oceans. They move in and fill the ecological niches vacated when other species become unsustainable or fished to the point of extinction. One day, when all other life forms in the oceans have ceased to exist, the seas will be wall-to-wall jellyfish.
That font of all wisdom, Wikipedia, tells us that “rising sea temperatures caused by climate change may also contribute to jellyfish blooms, because many species of jellyfish are relatively better able to survive in warmer waters.”
But right then, at that moment in time in the middle of the Binnekring at AfrikaBurn, we just did an ecologically incorrect dance of happiness at the serendipitous chance of the only jellyfish at large in the vastness of the Tankwa Karoo finding each other and briefly gifting the rest of the Burners a bloom of light.
We had been the recipients of much love as we cycled around the Binnekring at twilight in our diaphanous jellyfish costumes. Cries of “we love you jellyfish” and “you are so f***ing beautifool” followed us on our incandescent travels.
AfrikaBurn’s like that, even if it has swelled from around 1 000 people in 2007 to the nearly 10 000 this year. It’s one massive, seething desert camp of creative, crazy, mostly happy people practising “radical self-reliance” (parlance for normal desert camping for seasoned overlanders) in the middle of the Tankwa Karoo.
And it is a place of extremes: as we pitched camp in the dark on Wednesday, the temperatures hovered just above freezing, and double fleece jackets and beanies were donned to ward off the icy breeze.
By Saturday, the day time temperature had soared to the mid to late 30s, and on Saturday night, a very strong wind meant that the main “burn” of the event, that of the surreal, mystical “Subterrafuge” had to be cancelled for safety reasons (and we packed up camp in a raging dust storm on Sunday morning).
I haven’t caught up the latest news about whether or not this extraordinary sculpture, Subterrafuge – magical cones rising up to 30m from the desert floor – will be allowed to stand for the next year, but I sincerely hope it does: it is a potent protest against fracking the Karoo, conceived and constructed by artist Nathan Honey and his amazing crew.
In Nathan’s own words, “The times we live in make it hard to observe something of beauty without bringing to mind its potential defacement or destruction. The vast Karoo in South Africa is no exception… But the land itself has survived, holding within it all the potential to resurrect and to nourish…
“In 2014 it is impossible for me to think of the Karoo without shuddering at the thought of the new threat on the horizon.
“No matter how many sugar-coated lies the supporters of fracking tell the public in order to achieve their goal, the subterranean exploitation they plan will expel, extract and contaminate all remaining life force and potential that the Karoo holds in it, and the land, the landscape and the awe inspiring desolation it holds will be gone forever.
“Subterrafuge, the sculpture, is an attempted comment and an attempt to raise awareness and resistance, not only to the fracking of the Karoo, but to all selfish profit-driven destruction of the last few areas of natural wonder still left on the planet.”
Nathan and the crew – and all the other incredible artists like Brendon Smithers and the crew of The Interpreter – I think I speak on behalf of all Burners when I thank you for gifting us so many moments of wonder and awe. For a few days in the desert, we fled the ordinary and lived the extraordinary.
May the spirit of gifting and playfulness that is the Burn endure.