But trust me on the sunscreen

If you had asked me at the start of the year where I was going to spend Christmas eve 2011, never in a million years would I have said on top of a mountain, in North West Cameroon with a group of international volunteers and an African. Life has a fascinating way of throwing you off track.

But that's exactly where I did spend Christmas eve 2011 and it will no doubt become one of the most memorable Christmas eves of my life.

A few weeks ago, Phil and I decided that we wanted to hike a local mountain and camp at the top to watch the sun go down over Belo and to watch it rise again the next morning. Tobias quickly signed up for the adventure as did Simon (VSO volunteer), Brown (the local artist) and 4 American Peacecorps volunteers. The date was set for the 24th and 25th December.

So today, at about 2.30pm, 9 of us set off with our bags packed and headed for the foot of the mountain. The hike up only took a couple of hours but it was sweaty work with the backpacks. Brown led the way being the local boy and the most experienced Belo hiker. Once at the top, we set up camp and built a fire. Dinner was pre-prepared rice, eggs and flatbread.

After watching a beautiful Belo sunset, the evening was spent sitting around the fire talking and laughing, listening to Christmas songs on an ipod, gazing at the stars in the night sky, watching the twinkling lights of Belo village and playing around with off camera flash photography and long exposures to create some funky effects. The word in the blip is (almost) 'Belo'. It was a lot of fun and time passed quickly.

At close to 1am, when the temperature had dropped considerably and the cold was beginning to creep into our bones, people began to say goodnight. Having only one 2 man tent between us, Laura, Sal and Brown chose to sleep in hammocks in trees and Tobias chose to sleep next to the fire. The remaining 5 of us squeezed into the tent which we had managed to fashion into 2 tents by using the inner and outer layers separately.

There are some moments in your life that you experience which never leave you. I am convinced the final moment of Christmas eve 2011 will be one of those. As I lay trying to keep warm in my sleeping bag, in a 2 man tent, on top of a mountain in Belo, on hard, uncomfortable earth next to Tess, whom I had only met a few hours earlier, and Phil, I knew this was a special moment. And it was converted from special to surreal when Phil played the song Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Lurhmann on his ipod. As the 9 of us lay still and silent under the brilliant stars of the African sky, the words of wisdom rang out loud and clear through the crisp air. It was poignant, emotional and comical all at the same time.

I fell asleep to the lyrics; Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.