This past weekend was the fifth RAMfest festival held at the Nekkies Resort just outside of Worcestor. My friends and I spent the three days getting down, dusty and deranged on the dance floor at one of the most popular South African music festivals around.
We arrived at the site around 2pm on Friday afternoon and after we set up our tents we headed to the main stage to check it out. There were a number of food stalls along the way catering to pretty much every taste bud around and I made a mental note of where the med tent was. There was a “hydration station” initiative on offer; you buy a RAMfest bottle for R40 and you get cool, purified drinking water for the rest of the weekend. In the blistering heat we decided it was a good idea.
There were four main sections for dancers and party-lovers alike; the main stage was an impressive construction that towered over the audience, the Mercury Live tent became a fast favourite with those just looking for a good time and some 80s hits, the metal tent was unimpressive from the outside (I didn’t go into it once over the weekend) and the electro pyramid was a triangular construction of screens in front of a dust-dance floor.
Once we knew where all of these were, including the beer tent, the river and the pool, our weekend was sorted. We split up according to our preferences with the girls headed for the electro stage and the boys hanging out where the booze ran (not so) freely. We spent most of our time alternating between submerging our hot bodies in the river water, refilling our plastic cups either from our cooler boxes or the bar, checking out the live acts or thrashing around at the pyramid.
Our campsite was pretty far away from the main stage and very dusty but we still managed to enjoy chilling around the cooler boxes. There was no way anyone got to bed before 6 or 7am because of the pounding music going until the early hours. There was also no way anyone slept later than 8am because the hot sun would instantly make the inside of our tents like an oven. So for three days there were thousands of excitable zombies arbing around Nekkies, keeping themselves awake with river missions and the music.
We all had a fantastic time; the bathrooms and portaloos were kept well stocked with loo paper, the river was a haven from the blistering heat, the dust was bearable after a drink or two and there was music for everybody. My favourite acts of the weekend included Isochronus, Mr Sakitumi, Haezer, P H Fat and Bruce Willis?
Can’t wait to see how they pull things off next year!
Image via Stock.xchng.
Jade Scully is a copywriter excited about writing copy and stories, blogging about the world and editing. She currently and regularly publishes her stories on a number of blogs. Jade loves animals and hopes to begin writing copy for the animal rescue charity TEARS as her contribution to the cause.
