Spring 2011

Well we are finnished with one more year in Saudi! It has been a wonderful year and we have so many great times to look back on. Here are some of the highlights from the spring of 2011.



The end of spring means one thing for us: CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME! We are leaving today (6/28) and will land in the good ol' US of A at around 6 pm tonight! We will spend a few days in New York visiting family and will land finnally in California on July 2nd. Can't wait for the summer and to see you all soon!

Mud Brick Houses and the Attack of the Killer Horse

Charlie and I got to go out with some friends to a small town outside of Riyadh a few weekends back. We meet a Saudi man that was from this town and he wanted to show us around how Saudi living used to be. Hard to believe that as little as 50 years ago the even wealthy people lived in mud brick houses! The first part of the video was the tour of his house that he grew until he was about 10 years old.

The second part of the video shows the epic horse bite (go to about 10:00 min in). He took us out to a horse farm and as we found out, not all the horses were too friendly.

The last part is one of our favorite parts of being in Saudi - desert camping. We drove out to a quiet part of the desert, threw out the blankets and BBQ, and had some amazing kabobs, humus, fresh dates, Arabic coffee, and tea. It was a great night and is one more thing we have to to love about Saudi!

Also if you have not seen our other video with Saad, here is our dune bashing adventure

Dessert Camping

Two weekend ago we were able to do some more camping in the Saudi dessert. The weather is still nice so we wanted to get one more camping trip in before the weather becomes unbearable haha! Here are some pictures of our adventure!

So the first thing we saw was a herd of goats. We were excited to see some animals in the desert.

Next, we started setting up camp in a wadi which is a dry river bed. After setting up camp we decided to go for a hike up to these plateaus. The view was absolutely beautiful!

We had a good time climbing up to the top!

  

Soon after the guys returned we had some unexpected visitors to our campsite!

The camels were actually quite friendly and quite smelly haha!

The guys with there newest friends

The camels came through a couple different times with their herder who rode on a donkey.

Here is a video of one of times the camels came through 

Camels in our camp from Brendon Hunt on Vimeo.

After the camel invasion we sat down by the campfire and had some delicious Kabsa (chicken and rice). When we had finished the Kabsa we busted out the S’mores!!! 

After some amazing food and great conversations we headed for bed – our sleeping bag under the stars!!! Yep, no tents! I have to say, I did have one worry……. I kept thinking about the camels and I was hoping we weren’t going to get trampled haha! Luckily they waited until the morning to return and we were able to move our stuff out of the way for them. 

The camping trip was so much fun but it wouldn’t have been the same without the amazing people we spent it with! We love our new friends here and the old friends who have now joined us!

Winter 2010-2011

Wow it has been awhile. We are doing great here and tons of stuff has happened. Sorry it has been so long but here is a big recap of the last 4 months. Enjoy!

Winter 2010-2011 from Brendon Hunt on Vimeo.

We'll try and post a bunch of pictures and stories soon too. Thanks for keeping up with us!

Finally some pictures!

Here are a few pictures we have taken along the way...

The bearded man + his hooded wife

View from the backyard. You can start to see the sandstorm moving in.

We stumbled upon some old forts in the desert.

They are mostly made of mud and straw but were still in amazing condition.

Here comes the sandstorm! Ugh!

Have not had a full one yet but this was a little taste of what's to come.

But not too much worst than Riverside on a bad day right?

Few things to look at: KSA was talking with one of the head government officials from India so they lined all the freeways in Riyadh with Saudi and Indian flags. Also you'll see the sign for Panda on the right. It's like a Walmart and they also have their version of a Super Walmart called what else:

Hyper Panda

In America we have cemeteries with with grave stones. Here they have burial mounds. The more important you are the bigger the mound. You can see how people just build around them through the years.

A favorite weekend getaway for most Saudi's is setting up these tents in the desert. Inside is usually super nice fabrics and woods and some even have air conditioning. Not sure if this is technically camping out.

In California you have cows on the side of the road. We have camels.

Such a different place but we love it! Great hearing from everyone. Please don't stop thinking about us!

Now that's a storm

These pictures were taken in March 09 in Riyadh. We are going in february. Clariton anyone?

This was one of the biggest sand storms in history for Saudi Arabia and weather authorities said that visibility dropped to zero in the worst part of the storm. I guess this is their version of school getting canceled for a snow day

Just to give you an example how big this storm is, the building below is the tallest building in the Kingdom at 99 stories high.