From ashes to dust: How Pablo Gonzlez Vargas and Mayan Warrior lived to fight another Burning Man

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It’s a bustling predawn morning in Black Rock City.Darkness clings to the sky as thousands of bikers zoom across a dusty alkaline flat in search of a sunrise set, hoping to outpace the gash of periwinkle light bleeding over the horizon.

Spending sunrise at an art car is as customary as going out for brunch in the outside world.However, when your destination is itinerant and camouflaged by galaxies of LED lights, finding a particular art car in the dark can be a fool’s errand.

Unless your destination is Mayan Warrior, that is.Now on its third iteration, the Mexico City-based Mayan Warrior has become one of the most iconic (and contentious) mutant vehicles at Burning Man, the weeklong festival-meets-pop-up-city that sees over 70,000 so-called burners in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, also known as the playa.About 30 people are involved in the art car year-round, with a camp of 200 people, 70 of whom are crew members.

Famous for its full-spectrum lasers provided by Lightwave International, the masterminds who brought the rainbow prism of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” to life during Roger Waters’ 2007-08 tour, it’s one of the easiest art cars to spot at night.In addition to a rainbow of radial lasers, a brilliant column of light shoots into the sky, à la the Sacramento Kings’ beam.

Oh, and it spews fire too.For electronic music lovers, Mayan Warrior is one of the most popular parties on the playa, not just because of the spectacle but because it’s hosted artists such as Carl Cox, Rüfüs du Sol, Black Coffee, John Summit and Monolink, along with burgeoning Mexican electronic DJs, around whom the initial concept was developed.For founder Pablo González Vargas, it began in 2011 at his first Burning Man.“We were very impacted and impressed by how involved people are in making art at Burning Man,” González Vargas says.

“They give their blood, sweat, a...