Beltane is a celtic word meaning brilliant fire. Its celebrated on the eve of the first day of May to welcome spring/summer. Basically a pagan festival celebrating rebirth in nature. Every year in Edinburgh there's a massive bonfire on Calton hill. Got a chance to see it this year. Was expecting alot of pagan obscenity,half naked men and painted faces breathing fire.I got just that and more. We started with our walk up calton hill at 8:30pm. Reached there just in time to catch the sunset. Yup...sunset at 9 pm!
Anyway, so we were allowed alcohol in plastic bottles for safety reasons or whatever but I hadn't gone thru the pains of buying and decanting into pet bottle. Was a bit chilly up there and was just about cursing myself for not gettin-de-booze when brian opened his backpack and voila- cans n cans of beer! bless that irish lad. Also, for the first time in Edinburgh, with all its ban on smoking in public places including pubs...here I was..with a smoke in one hand, beer in another!AAAh!
Was Bliss ...except for the crowd of 15000.It was mad rush. Soon the festival started off with drumming and burning of giant penises and symbols of pagan God n Goddess on the acropolis. In the backdrop was an almost full moon. Was surreal. After that it was total chaos. Half the crowd followed the parade while the other I-thought-we-were-being-smart-half( included us) decided to get a good place to view the finale. We got good places alright...but to see an empty stage! We waited for 2 hours, in 7 degrees...waiting for the damn show to start. Apparently the parade went all the way around the hill so yea ..that took a bloody long time.Finally close to MIDNIGHT, thr was some action- fire torches and lo n behold NAKED PEOPLE!Lots of tits, no dicks! Fair??? But just when all us women in the crowd were about to get disappointed ..in came naked men...lots of them...bodies painted red..juggling fire and dancing like crazy fucks. Oooh it was quite good. By then, I'd forgotten how cold I was. Then the May queen took center stage and performed some obscene fucking ritual with a naked horned king and then more hooting and screaming. I HATED having to stand for 4 hours on my toes trying to get a good view. But the whole thing was a wild experience.
Was Bliss ...except for the crowd of 15000.It was mad rush. Soon the festival started off with drumming and burning of giant penises and symbols of pagan God n Goddess on the acropolis. In the backdrop was an almost full moon. Was surreal. After that it was total chaos. Half the crowd followed the parade while the other I-thought-we-were-being-smart-half( included us) decided to get a good place to view the finale. We got good places alright...but to see an empty stage! We waited for 2 hours, in 7 degrees...waiting for the damn show to start. Apparently the parade went all the way around the hill so yea ..that took a bloody long time.Finally close to MIDNIGHT, thr was some action- fire torches and lo n behold NAKED PEOPLE!Lots of tits, no dicks! Fair??? But just when all us women in the crowd were about to get disappointed ..in came naked men...lots of them...bodies painted red..juggling fire and dancing like crazy fucks. Oooh it was quite good. By then, I'd forgotten how cold I was. Then the May queen took center stage and performed some obscene fucking ritual with a naked horned king and then more hooting and screaming. I HATED having to stand for 4 hours on my toes trying to get a good view. But the whole thing was a wild experience.
...The pictures all came out so bad.:( I hate my camera. Got some good videos of 'the nakedness' though...may be I'll upload it on youtube. 
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