Because of the huge size of Victoria Falls, I took a helicopter ride to get a better view of this enormous waterfall! It was amazing to see the amount of water that was pouring down the falls and all the mist that was created. It was a tremendous ride!!There is so much mist created that at times the falls are obscured in sections!!The aerial view provides a bit of perspective of the massive falls compared to the bridge and road!I was so impressed to see the power of this tremendous waterfall!!This was one of my favorite views of the width of Victoria Falls. Truly an amazing place to visit!!
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!
Fiesta on Wheels 