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.