ushering in 2014 - the festival

[... continued]

getting to rezonance wasn't difficult at all, which was only a concern because the last time i went we got lost and ended up in a township. my cute little fiat rental wasn't happy at all with the farm roads, though, and i had to drive extremely slowly... good thing i hadn't forgotten my cds so i could at least sing along and enjoy the ride :)

i walked in carrying my tent and blanket expecting to run into my cousins immediately, but after a short mission i returned to the car to leave them behind and go hunting with my hands free. a good reason for not being able to find them? they weren't there! i thought we'd be doing the full family vibe but only two cousins were there at all, one leaving before the other arrived.

walking in past the third dance floor i heard a bit of george daniel, i'm almost sorry i didn't stay for more, he was amazing!

i found yang on the main dancefloor, we talked for a minute and then springer walked past. it was so cool to see her! she dragged me off to meet her mom and her fiancé, and a couple of minutes later i returned to where i'd met her and yang had already left, not to be seen again. in the minute or two that we had seen each other he'd managed to annoy me by boasting about the quantity of drugs he'd taken in a way that assured me that he'd done nothing at all and didn't realize that that was okay.
okay, then!
the next day one of my new friends would make a comment about how she can't understand how anyone could be stupid enough to leave before the last day, and i kept thinking of yang doing just that...

springer introduced me to her campsite and i set my tent up with them. the wind came up just as i began and subsided soon after i was done. of course :P

i finished just in time to catch the goldfish performance - brilliant! - and then we hit the dam for a swim. i sat on the bank because my boxers weren't appropriate for swimming :(

i was disappointed to find that there were precisely two options for vegan food at the festival, but fortunately the indian food was a very good option indeed. what was super weird was that the stuff they warned me was really hot and spicy wasn't a problem but what wasn't supposed to be spicy burned me :S

the night session didn't impress me too much, the dark psy and full-on were mixed and a lot of the music was loud and crazy but boring: no groove, no clean beats, boring. the few tracks that were good were really good, though, but not enough to keep me out there. i must have gone to bed around 11pm, which in retrospect was a sodding good idea :)

speaking of good ideas - my hippie feet! i've been given some grief about them, most notably by my mother who thinks that i should go for a pedicure, because they'd make a khoisan proud. they're rough and tough and made for stomping, even if they're not the sexiest feet around. i was very glad for them when i discovered an exposed piece of metal on the dance floor in the dark, not by walking on it but by stomping my foot down on it with full force. it hurt, and for a minute i was worried that i'd punctured my sole, but there was no damage done and everything was fine.
in fact, the worst thing to come out of the festival was a splinter in my left foot, i'm not sure if it's still there or not :P

i slept on the ground with a blanket and some clothing piled to make a pillow, and aside from waking up throughout the night to reconnect the tent cover which had been blown off by the wind i actually slept quite well. i woke up feeling rested and, surprisingly, with my body feeling aligned. nice!

i walked down to the dam for a wake-up swim, the water was lovely but drying off was extremely chilly, then headed to get some coffee. as i stood waiting for my order an old couple - and by old i mean somewhere in the range of 50s to 70s, it's hard to tell - stood next to me and were deliberating over their own order. when my coffee was presented to me the gentleman looked over and asked, quizzically, "green coffee?"
his wife (presumably) turned to me and made a calming motion with her hands. "it's the mushrooms," she said. "if you find liquid mushrooms, you really shouldn't take more than one or two drops."
i walked off with the silliest smile on my face!

the music from the second stage was waaaaaay better suited to mornings than that on the main one, so i took my coffee there. talisman was playing, he's a groovy old dude with amazing progressive and there must have been about ten or fifteen of us in total enjoying a perfect session!

when the stage shut down i returned to the tent where my neighbours were just waking up. i convinced them to join me in some rum, but i accidentally pulled out the southern comfort instead. should've labelled the bottles! i brushed my teeth, then returned to the main stage to hunt down tgtbt and her boyfriend. i knew where they were supposed to be but i couldn't find them! eventually i almost walked over them and laughed at them for thinking i'd see them if they were sitting down :P
tgtbt and i talked for a while and it was really cool to get some catch-up time :)

i picked up the bottle of southern comfort, put my boardies on beneath my shorts and hit the dance floor for some quality crazy time. it was getting hotter, too hot for spirits without ice - one of the guys i gave a sip to actually threw up - and eventually i gave up and returned the bottle to the tent. i'd developed heartburn myself, half a bottle of the stuff is apparently not a particularly healthy breakfast.

the vegan place made me a strawberry, banana and apple smoothie that was good, but had precisely one strawberry in it. i found that strange. when i went back for lunch and couldn't decide on quantity, i was called an emasculating name by a very pretty girl and told to take more. i told her i was fully confident in my masculinity and did not succumb to her taunting, and i'm glad because it actually would have been too much for me :P

the afternoon was absolutely wonderful. broken toy were excellent and gandalf finished the day with an amazing set, whoever was in between was good most of the time. there was a lot of mud to splash about in and everyone was having a jolly good time - though there were a few groups of people who weren't quite playing with the rest of us - and the only difficulty was trying to keep in the shade and not get too burned. i'm rather proud of myself for managing to limit the damage so well, big props to my mum for giving me a fantastically silly cowboy (cowgirl?) hat which helped a lot :D

i ran into one of my niece's new husband's sisters on the dancefloor, confirming my original suspicions of her being a bit of a hippie too ;)

my new friends (met through springer) were so much fun to party with and only to happy to share goodies, after the festival was officially over we all spent some time at the dam before heading back to the tents. the wind came up while everyone was striking camp and died down just as soon as the site was clear. of course :P

i stayed with them until i felt ready to drive safely back to cape town, and then a little longer because they'd arranged dinner, and the hours together were spent most joyfully.

after a beautiful, spiritual day and a half on the farm, i got in my car and drove back super-cautiously because cute cars and farm roads don't mix. days have passed, and i'm still feeling wonderful - may the new year bring us all light and love and continue in the vein in which it began!