A day in Victoria Falls

 Hello,

I mentioned that I did not know what we were going to do today.  Well, it was amazing!

A recap:

We decided to do a morning safari in Zambezi National Park and we got so lucky to be the only two with our guide Tam.  He picked us up at 5:45 am - but that is fine because we are still pretty jet-lagged.

We saw so many animals it was unbelievable honestly.  Here is a sample:

warthog (Pumba)


zebra - my "giddy" meter is going up quickly at this point


Grey "goaway" bird - because of it's call.


Somewhat obviously - a giraffe


elephants were around as well.


more giraffe


more elephant


this is an impala - we saw many of these, even saw them running / jumping away - so quick!


a grey warthog


little baboon family


one of the big 5 (so named because they are dangerous to humans) - a water buffalo


how about another impala marking his territory - reminds me of my grand-dog Rocco !


This is Tam, the truck and a little breakfast snack.  So lovely.


This is a baobob tree.  This is something that I was really hoping to see in Africa.  Sometimes called an "upside down" tree.  To determine how old it is you measure the circumference in meters and multiply by 15.  There are some in Africa as old as 3,000 years old.

This is a kudu.  They don't even have one of these at the (very excellent) houston zoo!


So. That was an outstanding excursion.  We were back to our lodge by 10am where they had waited for us with breakfast!  The breakfast here is different.  You can order an egg but the usual breakfast is sausage, bacon, chicken, beans, muffins, steamed vegetables - all things we westerners would consider lunch or really dinner.  Oh well, when in Rome!

We found the electricity off when we got to our room.  There was some repair work going on so it was a known outage.  The lodge had solar enough to keep the ceiling fan and wi-fi going but it was hot, hot, hot.  We spent some of the time in the pool, the rest was laying very still in the bed in our underwear.  So very sweaty.... ugh.

We needed to get out so we decided to take a dinner cruise on the Zambezi river.  It was lovely!

Carsten had the ostrich and I had fish, all drinks were included and we talked to a couple of PhD candidates as well as a guy who said he had lived in west Texas and then finally remembered it was San Angelo.  LOL - I asked him how he could forget where he lived - had he really had that much to drink?!?!

We saw a crocodile along the shore.


the sunset!


we had a primo seat at the front of the double-decker boat


so lucky to see this hippo in the river!


We have had such a good time on this little side trip to Zimbabwe.  More time is needed here as well as in Zambia and Botswana.

The people here were lovely and friendly and the nature has been breathtaking.

Now it is almost time for bed ....

Take care - we will catch up again in Johannesburg.

Sheri & Carsten

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