Northam, 54 km south of Thabazimbi in Limpopo, South Africa.
Last year was my first Oppi experience in arguably the biggest music festival in South Africa. Severe cases of dust lung, hangover and inability to walk due to those little thorns you swear were never there until you shower for the first time in their ice cold showers.
No warm water, no allocated power points for phones, no dignity. Nothing. Welcome to Mordor.
Let's start this off, day one had most of the Oppi folk down on their knees already, the combination of dust, sun, dehydration and copious amounts of alcohol had few warriors seeing the first nights proceedings. And what a cold night it was. Being my first Oppi, I was immensely unprepared for the wrath of Northam. I had no tent, only a sleeping bag, 3 packets of two minute noodles and enough beer and whiskey to tranquilize a horse.
I cuddled with the fire until about 10 pm, and woke up to see the party had resurrected into some sort of foul dust crusted demon.
Not remembering much after that, and waking up in someone elses food tent at 6 in the morning, about 2 km from my camping spot, I knew I was very much alive. This day would bring something odd, and extremely entertaining.
The OppiKoppi Naked Mile.
Of course my mates would see it fit to steal my clothes at the finish line and replace it with a warm bottle of tequila, leaving me with a "Balls to the wall" approach for the rest of the day.
The sunstroke struggle was truly real.
The oppi folk at the nearest campsite, like everyone there, were more than willing to help me out with a nicely charcoaled piece of meat on a bun and a ladies dress.
One of the international acts, a Gypsy rock band, called Gogol Bordello had the whole place rocking out to some funky jams never before heard in South Africa.
And if rocking and rolling isn't the vibe, they had massive international DJ's at the Redbull stage spinning decks non-stop. There was a sweet acoustic jazzy stage for the swinging prawns of Oppi, and of course the top south african acts like Francios van Coke, Karen Zoid and Bittereinder also had their say in the dust bowl.
There was just too much music to see everything that Oppikopi has to offer.
Nevertheless, I did not regret one moment throughout my first Oppi experience! With Mordor summoning me to the gates, this time as a barman, I cannot wait to see what it has in store this year!
In dust we trust!