Firstly, Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all!

Secondly, and more importantly, to all ye who had little faith in our beach + barbecue + camping plan: we did it! (albeit at the very last minute – we clearly weren’t designed with organisation in mind)

Setting everything up was a bit of a pain in the arse. It took three round trips from the car to the beach to get everything unloaded. There was a brief, tense moment when a friend of mine, lugging a heavy cooler full of booze, passed a police patrol while crossing the road. The policemen eyed it for a few seconds then waved him on. Another half hour was spent bungling about with rods and canvas trying to erect the tent.

When all was done, and the dust from our effort and pace had settled on the sand, we flew up the good flag (which comprised a stick-like tent support and a roll of toilet paper) and took a picture.

I felt our white flag, generally known as a flag of surrender, could act as one to great effect in the unlikely event of a police raid on our tent.

The next step was to get the barbecue going. We ripped open two boxes of charcoal, shoved the black rocks onto the rusted tin can and squirted lighter fluid everywhere. Rather vulgarly I might add.

Et voilà!

Our cook for the night then proceeded to grill the sausages (or wieners, or whatever you want to call them). Many jokes concerning this food source were told and many laughs were had by all *snigger*. Remember – you’re never too immature amongst friends.

I apologise for the crude humour evident in this article so far, and I’m afraid I must warn you that if you wish not to be part of it anymore, don’t look down.

Too late.

Suddenly (and I intend this not to have any reference to the previous picture), we heard a bang. Then a high-pitched whistle as a few amateur fireworks took flight from the beach. More and more went off during the next few minutes as 2007 drew closer. One attempt looked promising, but it fizzled before take-off and just lay there in the sand making a lot of fuss before it died, much to the embarrassment of the family that set it up. A more entertaining one jumped excitedly into the air early and, instead of soaring higher, the mischievous little toy turned upon its owner and flew straight into the crowd.

While we debated upon whose time was more accurate so we could begin the ten second countdown, about a million dirhams worth of fireworks exploded against the black sky in a dazzling display of colour – red, yellow, green, blue… ’twas midnight!

We huddled together and whooped and cheered as the loud bangs increased in frequency. We rushed down to the beach to pose for a group photo. Just as we were all ready, the camera battery died. We managed to squeeze a few more shots out of it by turning it off and on, though.

Then the bangs began to slow down, and eventually, as all things do, they came to a stop completely.

We continued to cook more food: sausages, chicken with onions and capsicum – even ‘beer chicken’ which is, funnily enough, chicken marinated in beer. The cook obviously wanted to rid himself of the old ingredients that been rotting in the kitchen (in this case a few cans of Foster’s beer). Then, an ember from the fire went astray and caught my foot. I yelped in pain, hopping about and clutching it in my hand.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8RFFTDCHKA]

While we were feasting on this delectable treat, I heard one of my friends calling out, ‘Do you think this is your home?’ Confused, I turned around to find a peasant had sprawled himself out on our carpet. He had a dumb smile on his face, and he sighed with pleasure as he answered, ‘No… This is much better than my home.’ As funny as this was, I had to ask him to remove himself from the premises (actual words were ‘get off the mat’) to which he replied, ‘No problem, friend, no problem.’ It took us about 5 minutes to convince him that there was a problem, then he dawdled off with his buddies.

We met some other strange characters that night. Two men came over with a juice bottle that contained a small amount of a suspicious looking liquid. They asked if we had any sprite or coke they could use. ‘What’s that?’ we pointed at the bottle.

‘Ah, this is… Rigul,’ one of them said.

‘Rigul?’

‘Yes, yes, Rigul Shivvus,’ he proclaimed enthusiastically.
‘…’

After a slight pause we realised, ‘Ah! It’s Chivas Regal!’

‘YES! YES!’ The two men were very excited now and one even shook my hand in delight.

I filled up their bottle with sprite, and they were very thankful as they went on their merry way.

By then, it was about 3 in the morning and a few girls had arrived. Following their suggestion to start a bonfire, I dug a small hole in the ground while they went to collect wood. The wind had been howling past us all night, and it took 20 failed matches to get it to light.

We talked and laughed as the night drew on until there were only 3 of us – the cook, the lighter fluid squirter and I. Some imbecile had forgotten to bring sleeping bags and we settled into the tent for an extremely uncomfortable sleep.

We ended up talking, then sleeping, then having discussions about the relative weight of methane and air, then throwing things – a box of matches landed on my face – I chucked it back, and it landed on the cook. He revealed a can of deodorant, and I knew we were in for trouble. He lit the match with an ominous grin, placed his finger on the top of the deodorant and… WHOOSH… A fireball erupted from the nozzle. The tent canvas went aflame and a gaping hole appeared.

Now it was even harder to sleep as the cold wind came travelling through the hole and over our feet. We brought the carpet in to act as a blanket.

Somewhere near 11:00 AM, we all woke up feeling half-dead. Despite our groggy state, we did notice a white flap with a warning in bold red text inside the tent: