September 12, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls with Zeb the Duck

Today, I, Zeb the Duck, will visit Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls National Park. Victoria Falls is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and we can walk to the national park and waterfalls from our hotel. Walking to the falls, we cross a bridge and railroad track. Some men show us the animals under the bridge.

Bush Bok near center of town

Isn’t this great. Less that a kilometer from the center of town, and wild animals are here. They said this was a bush bok. The train is coming now.

Train through Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Between town and waterfalls

A little further down the road and we see the entrance to Victoria Falls National Park.

Victoria Falls National Park, Zimbabwe. That is not our water bottle!

We rent a raincoat, pay our park entrance fee and go inside.

Let’s buy a ticket and go inside.

There is a restaurant and a few gift shops near the entrance. Also several displays with maps and other information about Victoria Falls. We liked this one.

Information about rain forest and water falls

Raincoats are recommended because the falls are so powerful that the spray is everywhere. Even with a raincoat, we were soaked, but the raincoat did help, so rent or bring one when you visit. This is one of our early views of Victoria Falls.

Our first sight of Victoria Falls and green raincoat of a tourist.

As we walk further, we see more of the waterfalls.

Victoria Falls has such force of falling water

The Zambezi River is about one mile wide at the waterfalls. Walking through the rainforest, we only see sections of the falls at one time.

This is called Main Falls. Beautiful, wet and loud

This is still further down the path. The path through the rain forest is very nice and easy to follow.

Path through Victoria Falls National Park near the waterfalls.

Much of the time we cannot see the falls, but we can hear the roar and see clouds of mist rising over the river. Victoria Falls was called the “smoke that thunders” by the native people. This is horseshoe falls.

Horseshoe Falls. Spray on camera lens

Each view of the waterfalls is breathtakingly powerful. On this photo, you can see that we are still rather far from the falling water, but the mist and spray are so powerful, there is water on the camera lens. And we have been cleaning it every few minutes. The guidebooks say that this is a place you must see, and I, Zeb the Duck, agree. Being there, at Victoria Falls, you can see it, hear it, feel and taste it (the spray is everywhere). The Zambezi River and Victoria Falls dominate this part of the world. Reaching the end of the path, you will have a great view of Victoria Falls Bridge.

Victoria Falls Bridge from Zimbabwe side

At Victoria Falls, one million liters of water drops every second! That is a lot of water. Those one million liters that fall every second, fall 107 meters, or 351 feet. When we visited, the rainy season had ended a month before, so there was a lot of water in the river. We love all waterfalls and we really love Victoria Falls. Next week we will show you what we saw from the Zambia of Victoria Falls.

September 10, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

The Colorado Traveling Ducks Visit St. Mary’s Glacier.

Yesterday we drove through Idaho Springs, Colorado to St. Mary’s Glacier. Into the parking lot, paid our $5 parking fee and began our hike.

Starting the hike to St. Mary’s Glacier

Heading through the woods, on the trail, we climbed rocks and climbed over trees that had fallen over the trail.

Climbing over trees in trail.

Isn’t this beautiful? These abandoned buildings were perfect for a photo.

Abandoned building. We are on window ledge

Soon the trail resembled a rocky road.

Wide trail with large rocks. Please do not try to drive vehicles here.

There are many trails. If you are climbing, you will arrive at the lake and glacier. If you are descending, you will reach the parking lots. When we arrived, there were not many people. Only 12 cars in the parking lot. We took the path less traveled. We love water, so we walked toward the sound of the river.

Beautiful river

The trail was narrow and steep, but so beautiful with only the sound of birds and water tumbling over the rocks. Continuing, we soon reached St. Mary’s Lake.

St. Mary’s Lake. Glacier behind lake

That is not snow in the background. That is St. Mary’s glacier. Like most glaciers, St. Mary’s is receding too quickly. There is another trail to the glacier. We are allowed to walk on the glacier and some people even ski on it. Over the bridge we hike.

Let’s cross the bridge.

Part way to the glacier, we stop to admire the view of the lake.

Lake is so pretty and sky so blue.

These two dogs are having a lot of fun running on the glacier.

Dogs playing on glacier

We have gained over 1,200 feet in elevation since we left the parking lot, and are now about 11,000 above sea level. The thinner air has less oxygen, so many tourists have a little difficulty breathing. Those of us that live in Denver and west of Denver, usually do not have too much trouble. Here we are, sitting on the glacier.

We are on the glacier above the lake.

Isn’t this a beautiful area. We are only about 40 miles from our home. In less than one hour, we can be in this beautiful place. Living in Colorado, we truly can have a vacation in a few hours. The temperature here is about 55 degrees F, (about 14 degrees C) and there is a slight breeze over the glacier, but it is rather warm.

Only one cloud in bright blue sky. Sun is very intense at this altitude

You can see the bright blue sky, with only one small cloud. The sun is bright, and at this altitude, the sun is very intense. Many people are hiking in shorts. But, it is smart to wear good hiking boots here. However, when the sun sets, the air quickly gets rather cold. This is just another reason we love living in Colorado. The hike from the parking lot to the lake is only about 3/4 mile. This is an easy day trip from Denver. If you don’t live here, we hope you visit and see St. Mary’s glacier and more of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

September 9, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

A Sunset Cruise on the Zambezi River with Zeb the Duck

Mom and I are traveling alone now. Leaving Malawi, we had an overnight stop in Johannesburg, South Africa and then we went on to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Welcome to Victoria Falls.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe airport

Our taxi from the airport took us to a travel agency on the way to our hotel. We made reservations for a river cruise and a one day safari in Botswana. Our hotel is located near a craft mall and anther outdoor craft market.

Outdoor craft market is huge

More time will be needed here. After checking into our hotel, it was time for our first adventure. I, Zeb the Duck, love boat rides. We went on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. This river separates Zambia and Zimbabwe. We are staying in the city of Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side of the river. The bus picked us up at our hotel and then picked up more humans. At one resort, we saw these warthogs in the lawn.

Warthogs on the resort lawn

Isn’t that great? Animals as soon as we arrived in Victoria Falls. Here we are, ready to hop on this river boat.

Getting on the river boat

We were only on the boat a few minutes when we saw this elephant, on the Zambia side.

Our first Zambian elephant

This is our first Zambian elephant. There are lots of birds here also. We recognized the fish eagle.

Fish eagle

We really like them, and we have seen them many places. Still on the Zambia side of the river we saw this mother elephant with a young elephant.

Mom and baby heading back to the woods

They did not pose for photos; they tuned and walked away from us and the river. The hippos here seemed to be playing with us.

Hippo

They would look at us and then go under the water. Soon come up again, but only for about 8-10 seconds. It was cute, but frustrating also. Here is another elephant, drinking from the Zambezi River.

Elephant drinking from the Zambezi River

We did see one small crocodile sunning on the sandy river bank. It did not show up well in photos. We are in the Zambezi National Park. They often name national parks after the river. Here is the sunset we came to see.

Beautiful sunset

And a beautiful sunset we did see. I, Zeb the Duck, love sunsets with the water. You know that I was on this boat, but there were many humans and mom couldn’t get good photos of me with animals behind me, so I am not in boat photos. We met so many interesting tourist on this cruise. One, couple, from South Africa, will be at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He will be an official in the rowing competition. We think that is exciting. We hope they had a wonderful time. I, Zeb the Duck, have not been to Brazil, but mom says Rio is one of the prettiest cities she has ever seen. But, we think Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe is exciting and pretty also. After the cruise, the bus brought us back to our hotel. We walked to the craft market, closed now,

Elephant Walk Shopping. Many beautiful craft stores inside.

but upstairs there is an Asian restaurant. So up the stairs we went.

Let’s go up to the restaurant

The menu featured several pages of Thai dishes and a page of Chinese offerings. Everything sounded good; we were hungry. This is an attractive restaurant.

Namtook Restaurant

It is called Namtook. We ordered from the Chinese page. This is our chicken and vegetables with cashew nuts.

Looks great and tasted wonderful

Do you see those chopsticks? We used them to eat. It was fun. Everything was very tasty. We are glad we chose this restaurant for dinner. Our first evening in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe was a success.

September 7, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

Lilongwe, Malawi with Zeb the Duck

All of our traveling companions have left Malawi now. Mom and I, Zeb the Duck, have one more day here. We have been to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, a few times, but never for very long. Today I want to show you some of what we saw here, in Lilongwe. When we first arrived in Malawi, we walked to this shopping center.

Lilongwe Shopping Center

You can see it is very nice, but not like our shopping malls. There is a Game Store. That is where we purchased sleeping bags for our safari. We did leave the sleeping bags at our hotel so others can use them or they can be sold to help other people. Remember our first trip was to Lilongwe Nature Sanctuary where we hiked and saw some animals.

Monkeys by road in Lilongwe

This was our taxi.

Taxi in Lilongwe

I, Zeb the Duck, like these kinds of taxis. A couple times we had dinner here, at the Bombay Palace.

Bombay Palace, Lilongwe, Malawi

The food was good and the people were nice. This was a nice dessert stop.

Here for dessert, Lilongwe, Malawi

We stayed at the Kiboko Town Hotel in Lilongwe.

Kiboko Town Hotel. Our home in Lilongwe, Malawi

Again, the people were all so nice and helpful. Everyone we met in Malawi was wonderful. We also had dinner here at the Ad Lib Restaurant.

Ad Lib Restaurant, Lilongwe, Malawi

This restaurant is in the hotel building, but they are separate businesses. I admired the huge wood carvings.

Wood carving

There are many talented artists in Malawi.

Wood carving in our hotel

The craft market was next to our hotel.

Craft market from our hotel balcony

We all spent a lot of time there. This craft market goes to the end of the street, turns to the right and goes about another block. Many purchases were made, but we felt the prices were very reasonable. And the vendors were very friendly and helpful. If you did not purchase anything from them, they were still nice. Mom and I wandered along different streets, but she did not take many photos. This is one street photo including a mosque.

Street scene with mosque

People from many countries and of many religions seem to get along well with each other. We did not see any arguments. Back to the craft market by our hotel, these friendly vendors were our friends.

Favorite vendors

Of course we did purchase some souvenirs. Mom said we have more countries to visit, so we can only purchase a few small things at each market. The suitcase will not hold too much. We want you know that all the people we met in Malawi were so nice and so willing to share with each other. Everyone had smiles. But, life here is difficult. This is one of the poorest countries in Africa. The malaria rate is high. Many people get cholera. The HIV rate is also very high. Even finishing elementary school is not common. You may have heard that southern Africa is enduring another drought and many organizations predict millions will die of starvation. These are the faces of youth we met.

Eager faces of youth

All eager and wanting to learn so much.

Students eager to learn more

If you have a favorite charity, perhaps you can give a donation for Malawi and other southern African countries. Some of our favorite charities are Women for Women. This charity often gives small loans to help women start businesses. Perhaps $25 to sew items to sell. They have a very high success rate and the loan repayment rate is also very high. Heifer International gives a few goats or other animals, perhaps chickens and teaches how to use milk, eggs etc for themselves, sell the extra and let the animals reproduce. Then the new animals are given to another family or village to continue the process. Of course, Ripple Africa is the organization where we volunteered for a couple weeks. You have seen some of the good that they do. And, World Food Program, connected with the United Nations, does get food to many that need it. We usually do not get this serious in our blogs, but we hope you can help these people. If you donate through a church or a favorite charity, the people of southern Africa and the Colorado Traveling Ducks thank you.

Attentive students on floor. No desks and chairs available

Next time we will show you our first day in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

September 5, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

Happy Labor Day 2016

Today, September 5, 2016 is Labor Day in the United States. Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September. This is a day to recognize the contributions of American workers, of all industries, to the United States economy. The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City in 1882. Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894. This holiday is also meant to give workers a well-earned day off to relax at home or get out for recreation. For many this marks the end of the summer season. On this Labor Day, we the Colorado Traveling Ducks, would like to recognize three Colorado companies that employee many Coloradans. In 1873 Coors Brewery was founded in Golden, Colorado.

Coors Brewery of Golden, Colorado

In 1920 Hammond Candy Company was started in Denver, Colorado.

Hammond Candy of Denver, Colorado

In 1969 Celestial Seasonings began making herbal tea and selling it to health food stores in Boulder, Colorado.

Celestial Seasonings Tea Company of Boulder, Colorado

The factories are in Colorado and each company offers free tours and an outlet store.

Celestial Seasonings Tea Shop in Boulder

These three Colorado companies have a large national following. We are proud of these and all Colorado companies that employee several humans, contributing to a healthy Colorado economy.

September 3, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

Georgetown Loop Railroad with Zeb and Soapy Smith Duck

Soapy Smith Duck and I, Zeb the Duck, took our moms to Georgetown, Colorado to ride the narrow gauge train.

Georgetown Loop Railroad

We live about 40 minutes away and it was a beautiful, sunny Colorado day. It was Buffalo Bill Days at the railroad. This is a great chalk picture of Annie Oakley.

Annie Oakley in chalk

And, of course, here is a silhouette of Buffalo Bill.

Buffalo Bill in chalk

Jeff was there helping people pan for gold. We are watching and helping Soapy’s mom with gold panning.

Panning for gold

She found some gold.

We found gold!

Then she panned for gems.

Panning for gems.

This is fun. The Georgetown Loop Train leaves from Devil’s Gate Station in Georgetown.

Devil’s Gate Station at Georgetown, Colorado

We like riding this train.

On the train

When you drive in the mountains, the roads have switch backs, so you do not drive straight up. The train tracks do similar looping and turning, to reduce the uphill grade to about 4%. We will cross Clear Creek four times to arrive at Silver Plume.

Clear Creek

This is one of the bridges we will cross.

We will be up there soon

In the late 1800’s this was a great engineering accomplishment. Soapy’s mom with a wild west character.

Soapy’s mom and conductor

We arrived at Silver Plume station.

Arrival at Silver Plume Station

Some passengers got off and others got on here. We got off for a few minutes to purchase snacks and then back on the train. We love being in our Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Love riding in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains

Now Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley sit with Soapy, Zeb and Soapy’s mom.

With Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill

Here is another view of the front of our train.

Our train is heading back

We are approaching Devil’s Gate Station, our starting and ending point. We liked these musicians, and they like the Colorado Traveling Ducks.

We like these musicians

When you are in Colorado, we hope you ride this train or one of our other narrow gauge trains. Have fun and do some tourist things in your home town also. We had fun today.

September 2, 2016 by coloradotravelingducks

Chongoni Rock Art in Malawi with Zeb the Duck

Leaving Cape Maclear, we saw many people on the road. This man, carrying such a big load on his bike, fascinated me.

He has great balance

And look at these women.

Perfect posture with incredible balance and strength

They can carry so much and such heavy loads on their heads. Aren’t they amazing? Now we are heading to Chongoni, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to see old rock art. The Rock Art of Chongoni would be very difficult to find without a guide. Fortunately we have a knowledgeable guide, so here we go.

Hiking uphill

After several minutes of hiking, we are near the top and our first cave dwelling with old rock art.

Hiked to the top

Inside this cave dwelling, our guide points out old painting on the ceiling.

Guide showing us white rock art

I liked this reptile done with darker paint.

Painted reptile

This is incredible. This art is in a cave dwelling and near the top of these rocks.

Rock art

This is the view from inside the cave dwelling, looking outside.

View from cave with rock art

Climbing back down, our guide takes us to a different style of rock painting.

Red Rock Art

Our guide is very cheerful.

Our cheerful guide

The space between the rocks is rather narrow.

In narrow spaces

More art.

Old rock art

We are in a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Malawi. This is an excerpt from the committee’s document of nomination in 2006. “The dense and extensive collection of rock art shelters reflects a remarkable persistence of cultural traditions over many centuries … in the Chewa agricultural society. The strong association between the rock art images and contemporary traditions of initiation and of the nyau secret society, and the extensive evidence for those traditions within the painted images over many centuries, together make the Chongoni landscape a powerful force in Chewa society and a significant place for the whole of southern Africa.” Wow! Centuries! I liked visiting Chongoni Rock Art. I liked seeing the art, and our guide made this adventure so interesting.

Rocks and tree really tall. Our happy guide and new friend.

If you visit Malawi, we hope you visit Chongoni also. Remember, we have much more to tell you about our adventures in Africa, and also some adventures in Colorado.

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