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Revelers stuck in the mud for days at the Burning Man festival in Nevada finally began heading home on Monday after Mother Nature rained on their big party.
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With the sun now shining on the colorful makeshift community of 70,000 people called Black Rock City, the roads opened Monday afternoon, kicking off the official exit process known as the “Exodus.”
“Exodus operations have officially begun in Black Rock City,” the festival said in a statement on its website. “The driving ban has been lifted.”
However, organizers called on visitors to delay their departures from the site — a dried-up lake bed in a remote patch of the Nevada desert — until Tuesday to avoid massive congestion on the way out.
Festival-goers had been stranded since torrential rains, described as two to three months’ worth in the space of hours, came down Friday night and Saturday, turning the venue into a quagmire.
So-called “Burners” wearing trademark outlandish outfits trudged through the thick, sticky mud with plastic bags as boots or in bare feet.
Some left on foot, hiking for hours in the middle of the night to make it to the nearest road and hitch a ride back to civilization. The closest airport is a three-hour drive away in Reno.
The festival — for which tickets cost hundreds of dollars — culminates each year with the ceremonial burning of a 40-foot (12-meter) effigy.
That had been postponed until Monday evening and was set to take place at 9 pm local time (0400 GMT).
‘An amazing burn’
But for many attendees, even the rain and mud were not enough to spoil the party.
David Packard from the city of South Portland in Maine said other campers let him and his friends into their trailers when it started pouring.
“There was a brief double rainbow that provided us with a lot of energy,” Packard said. “My feet are dry and I’m warm. So I’m happy.”
Packard also said…
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