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34 days in Zambia (Solipse report)
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Top level
Party reports
Festival Reviews
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Author: Gideon
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Publishing date: 26.07.2001 16:34
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Gideon has written a nice long report from his 34days in Zambia and the Solipse 2001 festival..
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10 days after landing in south africa we made it to zambia.
It took us 2 rented cars, 1 broken window (we locked the keys inside the car), 3 wasted days in harare, about 10 hours in total of border burocracy and many many coffee breaks under baobab trees playing poi with the local kids to the sounds of gms.
The day before the festival the main hostel in lusaka is full with trance people and the whole city is painted with fractals and dreads.
We treat ourself to a mid range hotel for a hot shower and last laundry and in the next day make the last 60 km to the solipse site.
There aren't enough wrist bands and it gets dark by the time we get in.
We put our tents up for the night- and in the morning we join some friends to form a "New York camp".
The first 3 days - the music is not playing yet. and the food shops make crazy money since nobody really does anything but smoke all day (and thus has to buy food every 45 minutes).
I thought it was really good that we had some time to organize, get used to the place and meet old friends.
there was also a great build up of excitement - waiting for the music to start- so when Star Sound Orchestra hit their first gong, everyone was there all excited and clean and with best intentions to create a beautiful experience together.
It was amazing for me. One of the purest-off drugs highs iv'e ever experienced.
I wait with my first trip till morning as it is way too cold at night to do any kind of dancing.
This will be the pattern from now on: sleep all night, wake up early, take drugs, dance all day. when it's over it kind of feels like the satisfying end of a hard working day.
A big healthy meal, chai by the fire and back to sleep. 2nd morning again- after 4 drops of what seems like fake liquid i finally manage to overcome the earth's gravity on a single (1 !) peace of paper called "tomato soup"- that immediately replaced gms (who didn't show up- to no-one's surprise) as my favorite entity in the festival.
As it hits me i go to check the chill out area- crossing on the way large areas of african savanna filled with florescent elephants painted tippies and small pyramids.
In the very trippy chill out area i dive into nothing/everything-ness for about an hour till i can stand up again.
Gideon disappeared and from the life before that day i couldn't remember more than a few vague flashes.
"Stella Nutella" is just starting to play and I have one of the best dancing experiences ever.
Filled with faith and sense of mission I get mixed responses from people- some are with me but some think I am on kind of a crazy ego trip.
Since it's not me who's dancing- I couldn't care less and when Stella finished her set in the afternoon I ate a whole box of cereal with my hands (no milk) and collapsed in my tent.
in the next day I have to drop a lot of acid to feel anything. What an amazing experience- just observing people from around the world- each with their different body language and movement- so much can be learned.
Yes, the people- so beautiful. full of faith and well aware of what trance is- very very few "wanderers" who come to suck energy- everyone is a shining sun who wants nothing else but to explode and spread light. I really think that in that aspect- it was the best party iv'e been to.
3500 people moving harmoniously as one organism. Each one donating something to the energy and creating an explosion that each of us will take with him and forever try to pass it on to those who weren't there.
Third day is the eclipse and like I've been planning for months- it's mushroom day.
What an amazing experience. I don't know if it was the angle in the sky or the shrooms- but it looked huge-way bigger than hungary, and it got so dark that we could see many of the stars (at 1 pm).
No words can describe that, so I'm not even going to try.
I think we got a day off the next day - no trance at all which I thought was a good idea. I was also coming down with a cold which later turned out to be malaria so I was happy to get some rest.
In the last few days it became more of a struggle to keep dancing than a celebration- especially since many of the promised acts never showed up and the others just played 2-3 sets.
I don't think music was the best side of this event.
Still- it was an incredible experience- with an amazing organization- the sound, deco, chill out, location, people, facilities, food. everything was close to perfect for me.
And the drugs: what a greenhouse of drugs- you could get anything from the regular psychedelics to san pedro, maskalin, 2ct7, and even "cactus juice"- which is actually made from some kind of root and is considered to be the african peyote
(I drank it in the after party and it was the weirdest trip iv'e ever had- open eye hallucinations that completely destroyed any attempt to tell dream from reality, combined with the strangest physical feeling of imbalance and lack of control).
When it was over we had a few days rest in livingsone where the Victoria Falls are.
Then many of us headed to bovu island for the after party. 1 1/2 hours by jeep, then a canoe - and there we are on this beautiful deserted island on the zambezi where crocodiles still swim and where hippo trails can be seen from time to time.
They had some sound problems that worked out eventually but everyone was so nice and the atmosphere was great (free acid punch almost every evening- like it should be in every intimate good energy party).
Instead of 3 days- they let us stay there for a whole week of dancing, resting, socializing and getting crazy from "cactus juice".
I left right in the full moon- just in time to catch the amazing white lunar rainbow over the Victoria Falls in the night of the full moon.
Since then i've been hanging out in livingstone, taking care of my malaria, hoping to move on to malawi in the next few days.
From time to time the hostel reaches a critical mass of trancers and unused drugs that nobody wants to take on the plane and we have a small gathering.
Nice, very nice.
And so i hear about this party in greece with a beautiful location and a crazy line up Sola Luna.
It looks like many of the solipse people will be there- making it kind of another solipse after party.
If it goes on like that we can keep having after parties till the next eclipse on dec/2002 :)
A lot of love and thanks to the organizers and all the beautiful people who made it such an amazing experience.
- gideon
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