I was in quite a pickle today because I had somehow left my
contact lens solution at home, and after having already slept in my contacts
last night, my right eye was definitely starting to get irritated and red so we
decided to go home and get the solution at some point soon. We hung out by the main fire
area where a so-called ‘Trade Circle’ had sprung up – various people presenting
a selection of knick-knacks (most often some kinds of crystals) on cloths in front of
them and trading them with other hippies. We started playing dice but before
the game could really get started, the breakfast ‘circle’ was called into
action and after doing all the required little songs and rituals we had some
breakfast, a mysterious mix of oats and eggs and bananas it seemed like.
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| The queue to get breakfast - literally 95% of people here are wearing tie-dye. |
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| Richie, in his trademark straw hat and turquoise T-shirt. |
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| Magpie, eating breakfast out of an 'American Spirit' tobacco can. |
We
went home to shower, sort out my eye and have some lunch before returning and
taking the beautiful weather as an encouragement to lie by the breathtaking
ocean scenery on some flat lava rocks – topless at first but that was over soon
when Koa and Richie (himself completely butt-naked) came over. After we nearly
got hit by a huge wave that claimed my newest lighter we relocated and rocked
Sarah in one of the hammocks for a while but when it was my turn to go in the
hammock she decided that we should go to Cinderland tonight and disappeared to
go find us a ride – it was our last Taco Tuesday of course as well as Thiago’s
wedding. She couldn’t find anyone so we went to hitchhike again but
ended up walking for quite a while before a guy called Raphael picked us up and
delivered us straight there. We’d never really arrived to Taco Tuesday so early
that it was so light and so it was a bit weird at first, especially when we
were then asked by some guys at the entrance to sign some paperwork in case we
appeared on film on the show they’re filming here.
We could hear raucous
laughter and jubilation a bit further away and after being led by Jessica
through some path through a field came across the wedding party there, a true
spectacle on the eyes, with the bride and groom looking beautiful together in
their all-white outfits, as well as a woman looking like a mermaid, a dreadlocked man in a
loincloth, a man in a flowery dress and a clown-hat, Jezus Cinderland strutting around in his little vest and a bunch of
people like Billy and Five just walking about topless blowing soap bubbles and
clearly already quite inebriated from the generously proffered champagne and
who knows what else.
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| The beautiful (and strangely clean-shaven) groom. |
They also served a delicious appetizer in the form of
thinly sliced raw beef (it has a fancy Italian name that I can’t really
remember right now) that I took an immediate liking to. Especially when seeing
that loads had been brought out and no-one was really paying attention to
it, I grabbed myself quite a big bit and attempted to chew it all in one go,
which is really not how you behave at a wedding and was duly punished in that I suddenly
found that I was choking. Not wanting to cause any embarrassment despite not
being able to breathe anymore I quietly tapped Sarah on the shoulder trying to remain all suave but thankfully managed to swallow the meat properly just after, so that no lasting damage
was done apart from enveloping poor Sarah in quite a cloud of mustardy breath
that I kept coughing up for a few minutes afterwards.
I definitely had a
new-found appreciation for life after that, which I’m sure was only helped by all
the champagne and Sarah and I were soon at the so-called zen den with a bunch
of guys having a rambunctious time of drinking and laughing a lot, looking at
Thiago and Moran’s fake wedding photos, listening to Five’s crazy ramblings
about archangels and auras while he was biting my hand, and being introduced to a guy named Tom whom everyone was treating like some sort of celebrity.
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| Also, THIS GUY existed. |
We didn’t really feel hungry
and decided to forego the tacos but did have a great time dancing by the fire
with the drum circle. At some point it was suggested that everyone should bring
their mattresses to the yoga room and everybody sleep there with the newlyweds
on their wedding night, which made us obviously decide to stay at Cinderland
for the night but somehow that never came together and we just stayed in the
zen den for a long while listening to a guy who looked like pirate say some
extremely profound stuff. At some point we got tired though (especially after
Billy handed round a cup of a mysterious brown substance) and went to the yoga
room to sleep.
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