A Day at the Beach – Arab Style

Some friends of mine invited me to join a bunch of people for a day at the beach.

So we headed out in 4x4s to the Western edge of Qatar, to a shore just south of Umm Bab to set up camp.

While some of the guys had brought some burgers and hot dogs the main attraction was barbecued sheep. A Yemeni friend of mine agreed to treat us all to a Yemini-style barbeque so he brought large chunks of sheep marinated in Arabic spices and wrapped in tinfoil for cooking.

First, we needed to dig a pit.

Then fill it with wood and some lighter fluid to get a good fire going.

Once it has burned down to a hot charcoal you put the packages of sheep on it, then cover it with sand.

Then put logs on top and start another fire.

From this point the meat had to cook for two hours, so some of the guys went into the sea to catch crabs. Here the sea was way too shallow for swimming (Can you see three other guys in the distance?). It looked like they were walking on water.

And as the sun set we sat around playing cards, chatting, and cooking some burgers and hot dogs. One guy took advantage of the abundance of charcoal to break out his shisha for a smoke.

After a couple of hours the meat was ready, all that was needed was a shovel to dig out the packages.

And voila, barbecue sheep, Yemeni-style. It tasted great, and the meat simply fell off the bones.

There was enough sheep that I was given a pack to take home. I had it for dinner tonight with some grilled vegetables.

After a couple more hours of eating, chatting and playing cards we called it a night and went back to the desert to the highway to get us back to Doha. All-in-all a great day.