The train arrived in Victoria Falls in the early morning. I was excited to be in the city that is world famous for having one of the seven natural wonders of the world!!We stopped by a local shopping market and talked with people selling various products.This woman showed us how the typical people in the town fix their food. They eats quite a few beans and peanut butter too.I think the foods they sold were quite nutritious and inexpensive for the local population.We worked our way over to Victoria Falls and stared in awe at its size. The falls are 1.2 miles in width and they are much higher than Niagara Falls! We started looking at the falls from one side and we loved seeing the double rainbow!We gradually kept walking and kept seeing new sections of waterfall. I really liked the rainbows too!!The more we walked, the more new sections of waterfall that we found. You can see people on the right of the photo that gives a little perspective on the size of the falls!!The force of the water was amazing!! It created a huge amount of mist. In several places you could see nothing except mist!!This bridge is very close to the falls. Zambia is on the other side of the bridge!Believe it or not, but people actually put on a harness and them jump off into the midst! No thank you!!As we continued on the path, we were greeted by these to adult warthogs!!This baboon moved fast, but seemed to be content to watch us pass by. We were warned by our guide to make sure we did not have any food in our pockets. He said baboons can smell food and would quickly put their hands down our pockets to steal the food!This baby baboon was very cute!!
We had an incredible day at Hwange National Park!! The day started by seeing this beautiful male waterbuck! I love the horns on these guys!!Right around the corner, we found this marvelous giraffe!! These are beautiful animals!!We heard on the vehicle radio that lions were found and we quickly changed directions and found this spectacular male lion!! It was incredible to see this wild lion so close!!Continuing down the road, we found this gorgeous monkey climbing in a tree! I was amazed at the size of his tail!!We found this beautiful female kudu with her baby in a nearby field. They are so beautiful!I am not sure of the name of this guy, but I loved his coloring. Africa has many gorgeous birds!!We found this muddy turtle making his way to a big watering hole. He seemed to be looking intently at us!We turned around from the turtle, and we saw this gorgeous elephant moving toward us! He was moving quite quickly through the grass. He was amazing to watch!This guy was a jackal looking at a nearby watering hole!These guys are small in the photo, but they are ostriches. The one on the right has his head upright and the “black rock” on the left is a ostrich with his head down. The mound between them is a termite mound.There are many dead trees in Africa and this one reminded me of a haunted movie or something.The zebra seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves with all the grass in the field!!I thought this bird was especially gorgeous!!The landscape in Africa can be ominous and spectacular at the same time!We learned that a leopard had made a kill, so we decided to try and find this gal. She had killed a baby kudu and afterwards she was resting in a tree. I was amazed to see her so closely!After killing and eating the kudu, the leopard dragged the kudu into a nearby tree to save it from other animals. Our guide said that the leopard would eat on the kudu over the next couple of days.This leopard just sat in the tree. She would stare at us and then she would look away. I think she was exhausted from the kill.This photo shows how distended her stomach is from recently gorging herself on the kudu!These baby warthogs crossed the road as it started to rain.I thought these birds were very beautiful!As we were driving, we came upon a large group of elephants! They were happily eating away.I was amazed at the size of these guys!I really enjoyed watching this baby elephant and he poked his head out from the pack.I thought this elephant was great! He was my favorite elephant in the pack!The lions also became more active as it started to rain.This wild lion was staring right at us as he walked closer and closer to us! It was starting to get scary since this lions catch and kill everything they eat. His tongue sticking out as he was licking his lips was concerning!!Take a look at this guys teeth!! They are huge and his jaw is strong!I did not like how he was staring directly at me! There is intensity in those eyes!!It was cold and rainy, so these two lions moved to the road for its warmth. I could not believe how close we were to the wild lions in an open vehicle! It was amazing and quite scary at the same time!!
For Matobo National Park, we rode is these open vehicles! They were certainly put to the test with the rough roads!!Our first stop was to see rock art from African bushmen!! This is a drawing of a giraffe!The roads were certainly fun!! Notice the person on the front of the vehicle buckled into a chair above the front bumper!The is the plant were curare comes from!Our guide pointed out the white liquid when a leave was pulled from the stem. If the liquid entered a person or animal’s blood stream they could die because the muscles would be paralyzed.She was quite knowledgeable and described how the bushmen would put the liquid on the end of their spears when they were hunting!This was a very healthy aloe vera plant!I loved the orange rocks and green vegetation in Africa!Africa is a very beautiful place!!On the top of this hill is were the famous Cecil John Rhodes is buried. I think this location was selected because there were beautiful views in all directions!!The rocks had different colors of lichen growing on them!! It was beautiful!There were beautiful views in every direction!What a beautiful place to visit!!Some areas made me think of sections in Arizona!This huge rock was sitting on the top of the mountain!!These roads were quite challenging!!There was never a dull moment riding around on these roads!!
We had a wonderful time at Antelope Park. This is a private game preserve and I thoroughly enjoyed our time there. The elephants were my favorite!!We spent quite a while with these three elephants and I loved every minute of it!!Up close the elephant skin is very rugged!!I was invited to hold the tusk of this amazing elephant! It was my birthday and I thought it was an unexpected birthday gift to be with these elephants!!Our group was each given an opportunity to feed the elephants!! What an amazing experience!Elephants eat continuously and they were quite happy that we wanted to feed them!Yes, I put my hand inside an elephant’s mouth to feed him!!The elephant curved his trunk around and wanted me to put the food inside his trunk!!It was amazing to drop food inside his trunk!!It was an unbelievable experience!!This guy just wanted me to keep going and putting more food inside his trunk!!He loved when I put more food inside his mouth! He teeth were huge!!It was very fun to add food to his trunk!!I truly loved spending time with these guys!!The rough texture of their skin was amazing!!They were continually sniffing for food they may have dropped to the ground!!These guys were amazing!Watching them use their trunks was quite interesting!!These birds stayed near this river and they would hunt for fish!!We next went on a drive in the park and found these rhinoceroses!! They were massive! They have excellent hearing, but poor eyesight. I was shocked at how close we were to these huge creatures!!This mom was followed closely by this quite baby!!They almost walked right up to our vehicle!!They have very unique faces!!Their horns were certainly impressive!!The baby stayed right with the mother!!This big guy was on the move!!I enjoyed watching this guy move around through the grasses. He seemed to be very happy!!This guy seemed to be listening and studying us!!Mom and baby came around on the other side of our vehicle too!!I really like these flowers! The oranges were so bright!This guy maintained a beautiful beat!!This was not the most comforting sign to see as we walked around the park!!This was a picturesque bridge across the river!The rainy day made everything seem extra green!!
We woke up in the train to see this fog moving around us. I thought it was a beautiful to the rich orange color African soil along with the green vibrant vegetation.On the other side of the train track were these homes. Our guide described them as round because they did not want to give snakes a corner to hide in. The idea is that if a snake enters the house, it will move along the wall until it come back to the entrance and exit the house. A great plan and I hope it works!!This kids lived in these home and joined us outside to say hello. A mom brought out the two middle kids to join the others and be in the photo!After spending all of the previous day o the train, we were looking forward to some exercise! We went to the Great Zimbabwe Monument and this monkey wanted to check everyone out.Our guide showed us all the granite stones that were created to build all the walls! That is a huge amount of work!!As we climbed up the monument, there was beautiful scenery all around us and spectacular clouds in the distance!!There were an enormous number of stones!We had to climb up some impressively steep steps!! The passageway was designed to be narrow to make it easier to defend themselves!The walls were quite high!The top was quite large.It was interesting to see different sections of the wall!One of the funniest things happened at the top. All of these young people came up to us and wanted to have their picture taken with us. Suddenly there was a stream of people and cell phones. We stayed in one place and new groups of people would run over and stand next to us for a photo. These guys loved it that I also wanted a photo with them!!It was fun to walk around the inside of the monument!I liked this classic African tree as we walked along the monument!
We made great progress on the train today and left South Africa and entered Zimbabwe! As we moved down the tracks, we could see people that had purchased items in South Africa and brought them into Zimbabwe.At the midpoint of this river, we were in Zimbabwe!Some people were carrying huge loads into the country!As the train chugged along, kids would run and wave enthusiastically at us!!Everyone was quite excited. I was excited to enter by 4th country on this trip!This is not the most high-tech railroad sign, but it gets the job done!I thought the Zimbabwe flag was quite colorful!!This hostess was quite helpful to us. While we were on the train for the entire day, I asked her to teach me about high tea and different cocktails that were so popular in South Africa. As she described various cocktails, I told her that I had never heard of any of them. She smiled and with her wonderful accent said, “Sir, we are South Africans and we take our drinking quite seriously (i.e., precisely). There is precision in selecting the ingredients and amounts of each component. They must be made to the proper South African standards!
Today seemed to be a day for giraffes! After riding the train all night, we had a continental breakfast at 5 am and we loaded in a bus at 5:30 am. We arrived at the Kapama Game Reserve and were able to watch the sun come up as we entered the park. Throughout our time, we encountered different groups of giraffes! These guys seemed as interested in watching us as we were in watching them!These giraffes seemed quite happy to slowly cross the road and enjoy the morning!I enjoyed watching this guy move between trees has he munched on his breakfast!!I think we surprised this beautiful female impala!I think this bird is a white capped shrike.Right after I took the previous photo, he flapped his wings and flew away!These are the types of trucks we rode in as we went all over the reserve. The seat up on the front bumper seemed pretty exciting!!This is not a great photo, but you can see in the distance that there is a hippopotamus moving across the lake! I was excited to see one put his head up out of the water!!I am not certain, but I think this is a grey go-away-bird. I like the hair on the top of his head!!This guy was with another group of giraffes! He seemed very happy to poise for us as we took his photo!!I really liked the horns on this male impala!!A very special surprise is that we came across this cape buffalo!! They are known to immediately charge perceived threats. Thankfully, he largely ignored us after peering through these branches.Cape buffalos have such interesting horns!!The bright blue bird is a starling, but I am not sure of the name of the yellow billed bird. I thought they were nice to watch!There were quite a few starlings in the trees. Their blue feathers were quite bright!These two male impalas were deciding if they wanted to challenge each other. The one on the left kept putting his head down to move forward with his horns!They were dancing back and forth trying to decide if they wanted to fight.The one on the left was ready to get serious!!We kept encountering different groups of giraffes as we drove through the preserve! They were magnificent!!The giraffe skin was interesting to see!!They seemed quite curious about us watching them!!It was amazing to drive right up next to them!!This is a horrible photo, but if you use your imagination and look in the center of the photo, you can just barely see the face of a rhinoceros!!This is an African wild dog. They are a very endangered species!! Each of the animals has a unique design on their coat. We saw this fellow in the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre.This female cheetah was quite interested in looking at us!! We watched her in the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre.She showed us that she had very sharp teeth!!This is another female cheetah that was interested in seeing us!!This is a male cheetah checking out the scene. He looks very sleek and fast!!
We woke up today in the train station in Mpaka, Eswatini. After breakfast, we met this gentleman named Clement. He was our guide for the day in Eswatini. Eswatini is a small country, but it was great to visit. Clement told us all about the history and culture of Eswatini. He was quite entertaining too. He called cattle walking in the highway an “Eswatini traffic lights.” It was wonderful to talk with him!!We started our day by first going to the Swazi Candles. We watched them make a series of candles by hand. I watched them create an elephant right in front of us.They has a series of talented people making all kinds of candles!!I liked out this globe candle looked like animal skin.I cannot seem to get enough of the African elephants!!We next went to the Mantenga Cultural Village. They recreated a typical Eswatini village and our guide told us about many of their customs.To me, the most impressive aspect was watching the dances and songs sung by these men and women!! There harmonies were incredible and vibrant!The men were intense with their dances!The women’s’ voices were amazing!Here, this man in the center led the other men in a song!The percussion drums were loud and these men were intense in their dance!It was amazing to watch how graceful this woman would move to the beat of the drums!It was unbelievable how high and fast these women would kick their feet. They did it all to the drum beat you could feel in your bones. It was simply amazing to watch them dance!!This guy was the only person dressed like this and he was very focused on dancing precisely to the beat of the drums!This dancer would jump high into the air with a tremendous force with his movement!!It was a delight to watch these dancers move to the beat of the drums!!When these men kicked during their dance, there was power in their movements!!The women quickly followed with their beautiful harmonies! It was mesmerizing!!I really enjoyed listening to this woman when she would lead a part of a song! It was quite beautiful!!These men were very talented!It was such a pleasure to listen to these people sing songs important to their culture!!The music was awesome!!After their performance, they were very happy to talk with me and warmly agreed for me to take their photo!!This woman had a wonderful voice. Sometimes she lead the women in a song and then the other women would follow her words. This woman had an incredible voice!! She is the person that usually lead the women in songs. I am guessing that she was their leader. Afterwards, I told her that I thought she must have the most beautiful voice in all of Africa. She smiled at the compliment. For lunch, we went to the Mantenga Lodge and ate under a covered patio and enjoyed looking at this beautiful mountain. Eswatini may be small, but it is a beautiful country!!After a full day excursion, we headed back to the train (90 minutes away). When we return from an excursion, the train staff always greet us with a cool, moist towel to wash our hands and faces.They next offer us a cool drink!! I always, always select the champagne from South Africa!! It is wonderful and refreshing!!The train staff treat us very well and, literally, give us a red carpet to walk on as we enter the train!! I now understand why people say that train travel is a great way to see Africa. Time for a quick shower and then enjoy dinner that is four courses every evening. One wine with the appetizer, another wine with the main entree, and a desert liqueur. A cheese plate is served just before the dessert. The wines are always from South Africa, while the liqueurs are from around the world. Every day has been amazing!!
After riding in the train for most of the night, we reached Maputo on the east side of Africa and I touched the Indian Ocean!!Maputo is an interesting city of contrasts. This is the classic, beautiful, train station and our train stopped close to this station.Near the train station, we learned of a sad problem. This building was taken over by a “landlord” that charges rent to the people living in the building. However, the person does not actually own the building! He receives rent and it does not appear that he does not do much maintenance! The owner is listed as a company that is no longer in business! What a mess of a situation!Our first stop was this fun market! With all the nuts that are grown in the area, it was impressive how many types were available to buy. I also loved all the fresh fruit!I loved seeing all the colorful fruit. I did not know the names of some types of fruit.I was amazed at all the different nut types!!Our guide was describing some of the vegetables to me. He loved how fresh the produce was!There were also street venders selling all kinds of products!Our tour leader described quite a bit of history about Mozambique and its leaders. China, Russia, and North Korea seem to be involved in a range of developmental projects in the country.This is the entrance to the botanical gardens.This was a nearby church. We noted that today is Palm Sunday!The stained glass inside was nice!We stopped at this beautiful resort for a bathroom break. They have a spectacular view of the India Ocean!!I liked the design of this walkway!For lunch, we went to an elaborate buffet at another resort. Their view of the Indian Ocean was incredible!!I really liked the colors in this artwork!!This was a unique fish that I liked!!I liked this lion, but I have no idea how I would get him home!!All the wooden carvings were interesting!!I really enjoyed to colors in this painting on the side of a building!!All different types of pots and baskets were plentiful!I find myself really enjoying all the ways artists here use orange!!It was great to see the beach on the India Ocean! I did not swim, but people said the water was exceptionally warm and enjoyable!These people using kites could go very fast and shoot quite high into the air!!I do not think I could handle how fast these people were moving!!People were using all different kinds of equipment!!It was nice to relax and enjoy such a picturesque scene on the beach!!
One of the most amazing experiences in my life has been to (finally) visit Kruger National Park in South Africa!! It is an absolutely amazing place!! We saw so much wildlife throughout the day. I realized we were in a unique place as we were in the parking lot at the entrance competing our paperwork, when a family of warthogs walked by right in front of us!!We saw many, many impala throughout the park. The males have these beautiful horns! They are also a food source for other animals such as the lions.I loved looking at their horns!We keep seeing impala as we drove deeper into the park.I was inspired by the beauty and ruggedness of these horns.This was a heard of female impalas. They are also beautiful, but the do not have horns as the males do.Here is a warthog enjoying his breakfast!He was soon joined by a family of warthogs.Here were two osprey looking for food.This guy is a steenbock and he is like a small deer with horns. Our guide said that he would only be a small snack for a lion! This is a very unique bird’s nest!!This is a female kudu. I thought she had very unique stripes along her side!!I love elephants and we were in for a treat as we saw different herds all over the park!!Here is a rhinoceros! They already removed his horn to hopefully prevent poachers from killing him. I thought these Egyptian geese were very unique birds we discovered in the park!Here is a hyena!! Our guide said that they have jaws that are stronger than a lion’s jaw!!I did not like how he was eyeing our vehicle!! He might think we would be a tasty treat!Elephants are simply amazing!! I love seeing them in so many locations of the park!!Other than Kruger National Park could you expect to find an elephant walking along the road!! These are marvelous creators!!The tusks on this guy are massive and strong!!I am simply amazed with the size and power of elephants!!As we watched this amazing creature, he simply moved along and was continuously eating! It was amazing to see elephants in the wild, with no cage restrictions!!The tusks on the elephants are amazing!! They can move many things with their tusks!!As we were driving, we came to a leopard tortoise crossing the road. The guides said that they have rarely tortoises in the park! The colors of the shell were amazing!!I thought this tree was a picturesque African tree!! After I took the photo, I discovered there were zebras all around the tree!Here is a mighty wildebeest!! They seem to like hanging around zebras!!I think wildebeest have impressive horns!!I enjoyed watching the female impalas! I thought there were beautiful and graceful!Here are a female and male impala! I loved watching them move through the grasses!With all of these impalas, they are a plentiful food source for the lions and leporids when hunting at night.I really enjoyed the majestic horns on the male impalas!!Impalas are beautiful creatures!!We were fortunate to stumble upon so many different elephant herds during our day in the park!!Our guide pointed out that the shape of an elephants ear is in the shape of the African continent!!Elephants are amazing!! This guys tusks are massive and strong!!As they move through an area, the elephants are continuously eating!!Off in the distance, we were excited to find a giraffe!!The wildebeest were massive and impressive creatures!!The wildebeest herd seemed to hang closely together!!Close by to the wildebeest were the zebras!! I love the design of the stripes on the hide!!The wildebeest seem unique in design and they seem to like to be near all the zebras!!I think it is mesmorizing to look at the stripes on the zebras, especially the stripes on their faces!!The zebras seem to be a close family!!The design of the zebra stripes are amazing!!I really enjoy looking at the zebra stripes!!I absolutely love the stripes on this zebras face!!This guy seems to be quite happy and well nourished with his full mane!!Our guide told us that this youg fellow’s mane standing straight up indicates that he is health and well nourished!!This wildebeest looks intense!!I was impressed with the sharp bend in this guys horns!!This guys look intimidating to me!!Zebra stripes are amazing!!
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Wildebeests seem forceful!!Wildebeests seem to always be watching closely for predators!!This small guy is a dwarf mongoose!! Our guide pointed out that a group of these guys work together to kill poisonous snakes!!This is a brown snake eagle!!It was nice to see this young giraffe!!Giraffes are so majestic!! It was great to have a closer view with this giraffe!!Giraffes look ungainly, but they move very gracefully!!I enjoyed watching this giraffe maneuver around to eat the most leaves!!This female kudu seemed as interested in us as we were in her!!This is a golden orb spider!! I think he could eat me alive!!I really enjoyed watching the giraffes move around. Massive but graceful!Here is a (cape) buffalo. He seemed to be very happy enjoying this stream!!This giraffe seemed to love how much we enjoyed watching him move around!!I really enjoyed watching this last herd of elephants we found. We watched them move their ears back and forth to cool themselves down. They are assume creatures!!Elephants are massive, smart, and graceful!!These guys seemed to be quite happy eating along and moving their ears to stay cool!!Elephants are amazingly strong!!I enjoyed watching this guy happily feed himself as he walked along!!Elephants are wonderful!!All of a sudden, this giraffe started running full speed across the road!! I have no idea why he was in a hurry!!This is a gorgeous male kudu!! His horns are absolutely amazing!! He was sort of hiding in the shade as we drove by, but we found his and were astounded by his elaborate horns!!This white rhinoceros seemed to be very happy enjoying his meal!!Nearby, a baby rhinoceros joined his mom!!Although quite difficult to see through the trees, this is an african wild dog. The have very big ears and they are a very endangered species.Here the wild dog is moving a bit farther into the trees!!As we were preparing to cross the river and leave Kruger National Park, we looked down and say this massive crocodile!! It is completely amazing how many different types of wildlife we saw today in Kruger National Park!!
Fiesta on Wheels 