Baboons By The Sea-The Cape of Good Hope

Baboons By The Sea

One of my (many!) favorite memories from South Africa was visiting the Cape of Good Hope, specifically Cape Point National Park located just outside Cape Town.

It was truly a magical event…I have always wanted to see the Cape of Good Hope. It conjured up images of some exotic place on the other side of the world (at least from Texas)-and it pretty much is!

The highlight of our outing was seeing a troop of baboons feeding on the rocky beach as the sun set behind them-a beautiful sight! Also a very frustrating one because my camera’s CF card become corrupted, so I lost all of my images for that day (and of course your lost images are always your best ones!). But BG still got some great shots with her camera…

A big warning-don’t do what we did! I got excited and jumped out of the car to shoot pictures of the baboons. There were a number of other tourists doing the same thing so I did not think much about it. But our relatives gave us a stern warning when I told them our story that evening-baboons can be very dangerous and unpredictable…

But it was still a very magical moment (especially because we were not hurt!). I strongly recommend that you tour the Cape of Good Hope-but stay in your car and invest in a good telephoto lens if the baboons are roaming around…

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Raymond Pechacek lives in the U.S. and is married to a wonderful South African lady (BG!). He writes about the people, customs, wildlife, and places of South Africa, runs a consulting firm to help companies improve their global trade processes, and imports products into the U.S. - with an emphasis on supporting South Africa!