Riyadh - Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom Tower (left) and The Al Faisaliah Tower (right)

Our little compound view from top of the water tower in the center of it.

Some shots from atop a large tower we have situated in the middle of our little compound in the Northern Suburbs of Riyadh. Pretty sketchy ladder climb up this thing, I'm hardly comfortable in high places but even my boss Phil said he was checking his pants after the climb down. From up there you can see into the center of downtown Riyadh. The Kingdom Tower (the one that looks like a bottle opener) and the Al Faisaliah Tower (the ballpoint pen) are the two prominent buildings you can see in the pictures.
Riyadh has SOME pretty impressive architecture but thank goodness this place is not built on a fault line! (There is also a lot of extremely tacky architecture, they seem to be stuck in a bit of an 80's early 90's glitz and glamour themed state). If you could see the construction of some of these buildings you would know that one earthquake here and the whole city would literally fall apart. The brick work holding some of these buildings together is a little unnerving...
Our compound I have called home for the last 7 months pales in comparison to others the Americans and Brits have built for themselves here, their compounds are actual towns of their own surround by prison style walls and armored cars, guards and metal detectors. Set foot in them and you walk into another country, a little piece of the western world sticking out like a thorn in the side of surrounding Saudi's, part of life in Saudi.

Work - Saudi Arabia...

An arterial line leak and I get soaked, not stoked.

The Sahara Desert - Morocco

A trip to the desert wouldn't be complete without a ride on a camel. These things are incredibly hard to shoot photos from but!

Crossing The Atlas - Morocco...

UNESCO world heritage site Ait Benhaddou and old fortified castle city of Morocco.
This area of Morocco namely here and Ouarzazate has lent its scenery to some pretty hefty Hollywood films such as Gladiator, Babel, Body of Lies, Lawrence of Arabia, Alexander, Prince of Persia, The Hills Have Eyes, The Mummy and heaps more!

Sturdy stuff bricks of mud and straw...
Everything is built out of these bricks.

Essaouira - Morocco...

Meat refrigeration is not yet a learned thing in Morocco, yet a couple of the lads thought it was a great idea to by some lovely sausages from a local butcher for dinner one night, they paid the price as did the toilet bowls they graced for the following 4 days...
Who would have thought raw meat sitting in the sun and open air all day long fermenting in the skin of a sausage could make a person sick....

Well... I had an inkling haha suckers!

The Atlas Mountains - Morocco

Mad Mosaic Maze of Marrakech Morocco...

Djemaa el Fna of a day with clouds that looked like they were just painted into the sky.

Merdersa Ben Youssef - A very old Islamic School in Marrakech founded in the 14th century, has some of the most amzing Saadian art/architecture I have seen!

I'm no tradie by any means but even I can tell there is something funny going on with this guys brickwork... Maybe a little too much Moroccan hash for breakfast...

I've been living lost in translation for 7months now yet signs like these still crack me up. Reminds me of the Beanstalk coffee sessions where Riccardo was always too scared to use the bathroom in case a pretty girl would go in straight after, therefore he would run across the road to Thirroul Library to tend to his business. Coffee and Ricci's morning poo seemed to combine more often than necessary... Secrets out now Ric sorry bud. Ha!

Morocco's famous dish the Tajine, eat these daily in Marrakech, the chicken with lemon and olives is pretty hard to pass up.

Stall keepers of Djemaa el Fna will haggle you from behind the safety of their large variety of fruits, nuts and impressive stacks of oranges. The hagglers outside the squares makeshift restaurants were always a laugh, they knew bits and pieces about every country that tourists could be from, they pulled out kangaroo shagger and a bunch of quotes from Summer Heights High on me and I was impressed! One haggler was the happiest guy ever and we couldn't work out why he was so happy to be running around heckling the tourists then we noticed the hash joint he had discretely tucked away in the palm of his hand, we asked him about it and he straight up told us "How else can I smile and do this job?" Smoking yourself insane to stay sane is not as crazy as it might sound...