DISCLAIMER: This is a pure fantasy! And it isn’t for proselytism…

A friend of mine have been talking about this special event, called Burning Man and I had absolutely no idea what it was but I was eager to learn more about it…

Burning Man is an annual gathering that takes place at Black Rock City — a temporary community erected in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The event is described as an experiment in community and art, influenced by 10 main principles, including “radical” inclusion, self-reliance and self-expression, as well as community cooperation, gifting and decommodification, and leaving no trace. First held in 1986 on Baker Beach in San Francisco as a small function organised by Larry Harvey and a group of friends, it has since been held annually, spanning from the last Sunday in August to the first Monday in September.

We decided to go to Burning Man 2013 with a party of 12, yeah it wasn’t easy to manage.. But we had our tickets booked months ago, that was the most challenging

Rented a huge RV that we destroyed… Luckily we had the premium insurance and it only costed us a thousand euros instead of a couple of thousands…

How can I describe Burning Man… In three words at first, drugs, sex and music then then it got more interesting after The Night.. So I will emphasize about that particular night later on, because this was Burning Man to me! And of course, you are completely disconnected, as there is no Wifi, no Phone signal or Power for almost a week!

Before you need to know some few things about me! I don’t smoke, never smoked! ( I’m Moroccan, seriously??!?! ), I don’t drink, never drunk ( I’m Muslim, no kidding )… The only weird substance I had was Magic Mushrooms in Amsterdam four years ago where I started reading bible and I was pretty sure that Jesus was Muslim! It was short but fun.

And I wanted to try another stuff… LSD! But it was a failed attempt the first time as my genius friend gave me the wrong dosage and it only worked one side, when I closed my eyes. I saw Candy Crush levels in my head! It was crazy… And I woke up my friends who were already sleeping to ask them if they wanted some sleeping pills to sleep… This is how stoned I was that night.. I hated it… But yet, I knew that there was something magical that I still needed to experience, so my friend said that I’d be just fine in BM.

So let’s get back to Burning Man, after a very nice road trip me and my bunch of friends, we arrived quite late the first day, we set our camp and I directly slept after a long ride.

The second day I woke up quite early, everyone was still sleeping as they all went out to have fun, so I took my bike and visited the Playa! took time to visit all the sites and the great architectures there, some stuff were just WOW and I kept saying how could they burn these things to the ground. then finished my tour, It wasn’t too bad… People seemed to enjoy it but I didn’t really… Not the kind of guy that like to party and stuff plus I was just ALL SOBER and AWAKE.

Then I got back to the RV… And told my friends that BM is cool but I want it to be cooler… Memorable! Bref! I wanted to see the world through the eyes of Steve Jobs…

My friend had some LSD in his socks… Disgusting, I know. But nothing that I couldn’t handle, he gave me the right dosage this time…

We went out to celebrate some artwork of our neighbours, then we climbed a giant Mutant Duck, talked. Danced… And then I had that smile… And Chouchou looked at me and told me! Hamza, we’ll be all good tonight. And we did!

I was kind of floating in the sand, we got back to the RV to get the rest of the team… And got out! I was such a baby that night. My friends put some water and cookies in my bag so I stay hydrated, a jacket so I don’t get cold, a banana that ruined the night but I’ll get to that later and we got out! It was such an exceptional night, I loved it! It was a very nice experience, or… Quite a long and cool journey!

I started getting hungry and there was this godsend! a lady walked towards me to offer us food! I was kind of hungry and high! But I remained a good Muslim and asked her if there was any pork! She said it’s vegetarian, I thanked her and got the plates and had a very nice dinner, can’t tell what was it.

I was really high, forgot pretty much everything about me and the rest of the world. Met new people, hugged lots of strangers, they were all nice!!!! I’m an Arab! And I have an Arab face!! And everyone looked the same way. We are all equal at some point…

An 8 hours journey… Alice in Wonderland of course with Hamza being Alice and Burning Man being Wonderland From 6 PM to 2 AM and then it started getting weird.

We did all kind of stuff, like ice skating, there was this big rink, you just had to fill your “shoes” size and start having fun, but I didn’t, I was so high that I knew if I removed my shoes I’d lose them, so I just pretended that I had them and started skating, after all, I was already up there… :)

Then we started exploring different places, and there was a huge trampoline, we all started jumping and having fun, that was AWESOME. At the end, I wanted to have some water and cookies and this is when the Banana ruined the night :D It became banana juice in my bag… disgusting :D and I couldn’t throw that out because of no trace policy in Burning Man.

We danced, laughed, walked, talked, OMG!!! I’m determined to complete this article today after 2 years and a half and while writing these final stuff, I start remember all that… MAGICAL! That’s the kind of experience you just DO NOT FORGET.

At some point Chouchou started running towards another mutant car and I had this terrible idea to follow him and left my other friends… So I was alone, with Chouchou that was just way higher than me.. The host offered us something to drink of course with me making sure that it was alcohol free :D

I was very tired and I wanted to go back home and Chouchou wanted to stay so I had to leave him… and got lost for nearly 2 hours.

I didn’t freak out as it was really good to be lost for once and not trying to find my way home, after that, what could possibly happen!

So I was walking in the middle of the night. By myself… I started to get out from my trip… And as they say in Get him to the Greek: “It goes away but then… it comes back”.

I started remembering things! My parents! My friends, my business, the only thing I didn’t quite forgot was God!

Then I started deeply thinking… And redefining things. What am I doing here? What is life? What’s the purpose of life… I started looking around and asking myself what I was doing there, I was hearing loud music, seeing people drunk/drugged all over, God must not be happy with all of this! I’m not a very religious guy, but I’m a huge believer… I knew that God never forgot about me as he was always there.

During that night I took some big decisions:

Leaving Facebook, it’s been 2 years already.

Leaving Casablanca for Marrakech, done.

Getting married wasn’t actually one of them, but what can I say? I’m a lucky bastard. I try to think of my wife as the reason I went back to Marrakech.

I was able to find my way home ( or back to the RV ) after quite sometimes, and tried to sleep but that was quite impossible…

The next day was the last day of Burning Man, and it was an awesome show, 80 000 people gathering in of front of a Burning Man…

A month later I went to Saudia Arabia to accomplish my 5th pillar of Islam

Going to Hadj isn’t that easy, it’s harder than going to Burning Man, For Hadj there is a Quota for every country, and it’s one place for every 1000 citizen, so for Morocco it’s 34 000 places as we are 34 Million citizens, so they make somekind of lottery in every major city, so we were the “selected”, my mom, my brother and I, we were happy at first, then the Saudia Arabia Authority announced that they will reduce the number of Pelgrims by 20% due to the maintenance in Haram at Makkah, a month later, they said that the 20% concerned are the ones below 50 years. So since I’m only 27, it’s a lost cause… but what can I say! God wanted me there! So for some reasons there was a cancellation at last minute for a couple so I got in me and my brother and of course my mom.

Burning Man 2013 was an 80 000 people event, and it was just huge, Hadj 2013 was something a bit more than 3 Million people ( usually 5 Millions ) but due to maintenance in Haram, they had to reduce the number of Pilgrims, so roughly 40 times more people.

Hajj is Arafah

Arafat is the 9th of Di al hijja and it starts at mid day and ends at sunset, during this time Pilgrims pray and ask God for forgiveness, so imagine 3 million people in less than 10 km square standing and praying and asking God for forgiveness, it was just WOW.

Mount Arafat or Mount Arafah (Arabic: جبل عرفات; transliterated Jabal ‘Arafāt) is a granite hill east of Mecca. It is also known as the Mount of Mercy (Jabal ar-Rahmah). According to Islamic tradition, the hill is the place where the Islamic prophet Muhammad stood and delivered the Farewell Sermon to the Muslims who had accompanied him for the Hajj towards the end of his life. It reaches about 70 m in height.

We spent the whole day on Arafah supplicating to Allah to forgive our sins and praying for personal strength in the future.

I have been to the Temple of Burning Man, you can find something like 100 people pretty much all the time, praying, sleeping… Or just watching all the stuff people leave there and pictures. In Arafat, it’s something like 3 Millions people, praying for pretty much 6 hours asking for forgiveness and paradise

The Prophet (pbuh) said: He who performs Hajj and does not speak obscenely or commit evil then he returns just as the day his mother gave birth to him (Narrated by Bukhaari, Ahmed, Nasai and Ibn Majah from Abu Hurairah). and you can only achieve that by Hajj or for non Muslims, converting to Islam as they become new to the religion so God forgives all their sins.

It started by Ihram back in Makkah then going to Mina in the morning so we spend the day there and move to Arafat the next morning.

We arrived to our camp in Mina at approximately 9AM, it was a 100 meters square with about 60 people, with a 50 cms bed each… I was like WHAT? Where is my king size bed? But then I said it’s only 4 days… And I’m here to flush my sins so let’s be adult about it… We had to mix up with a bunch of strangers, two different groups from Morocco as well so we can manage to have two tents, one for men and one for women… I was skeptical at first but it turned to be just fine as the other guys were as nice as ourselves.

We had about two Islam courses each day, it was about Hajj, Piety and Good…

Mina days is about food, drinks and remembering God.

The next Morning after praying Fajr, we headed to Arafah and arrived at about 8AM, we went to our tent there where we rested a bit, read some Quran and waited for midday to begin the Standing of Arafah ( we didn’t had to be literally up, just the fact to be there was called Standing ), after having lunch we started praying as Arafat hours were kind of limited, from 1PM approx to 6PM, and during this day…

So I remember praying and asking God for forgiveness for all the weird things I have done in the past with some regrets hoping that I will be forgiven, but there is no doubt in that, I was forgiven! The Standing ended at sunset with a very nice Duaa from some Imam in the tent next door, it was… How can I say like a gentleman, refreshing!

After sunset… We moved to Muzdalifah to spend the night there until Fajr. In our way there, there were like hundred of thousands of people walking, I have never seen anything like it in my whole life! People looked so small, all suited up in white and walking towards Muzdalifah as not everyone had access to a bus. It was just HUGE! Whole Burning Man multiplied by 40… Walking! The Chaos! We reached Muzdalifah after one hour and we prayed in a parking lot and made it home as we put our stuff there… Just this time, we didn’t had the 50 cms bed nor the tent, we put some kind of blanket in the soil and slept, this was the most uncomfortable place to have a rest, yet, when you are exhausted you just manage to close your eyes and sleep, I was confusingly waken up at 1AM, I swear it was like a Hollywood movie, a chopper in the top of my head with its very annoying sound, the wheel of a giant bus near my head, I was scared to death before I realized what was happening, so as I said we were sleeping in a Parking lot, au Clair de la lune! In Muzdalifah you can either stay there until midnight then leave to Mina for women and old people, or stay there until sunrise for people who are strong enough to make it as we need to go back to Mina happination ( by feet ). So some bus needed to go out and we were blocking the road… So we had to move out our Ritz bed ( a blanket ) some inches back and I did easily go back to sleep, it wasn’t that uncomfy afterall. The Holly Sleep :P

I finally woke up at 4AM, had a very good shower, prayed and then headed to Mina, it was a 3 Kms walk at 2km/h as it was so crowded, a bit more a million moonwalking…

Arrived about an hour and a half later, rested a bit then we went out to throw the stones at the devil, cut my hair then we get rid of the Ihram.

And here I am, good as new… successfully ( I hope ) accomplished my fifth pillar of Islam. ( Not sure about about Photobomb lady behind! :D ).

To sum up, life is meant to be lived, fully, with no or not so much regrets, everything that is meant to happen, will eventually happen, and one thing that none could escape from except God the almighty is death. So think wisely about what you do next…