Creative Technology Applications

Cape Town, South Africa - Part 4

The Cape of Good Hope

The obligatory tourist photo.

While the scenery was great, the most interesting features were (1) the baboons and other wildlife, (2) things to climb on and explore.

Cape of Good Hope Baboons

There are several troops of baboons that live down on the Cape. Most are people tolerant, but have not been tainted by human exposure. These monkeys wander the beaches and hills eating greens. You can get quite close to some of them.


Um, daddy, there's one over here :-)

Some roam the parking lots where they've learned that humans can be a good source of tasty treats (intentionally or unintentionally). This one roamed the parking lot and eventually climbed on the car right next to ours and was scoping out the action.

Unfortunately, some have become rather aggressive. For instance, we were warned about carrying white plastic bags in parking lots since the baboons have learned to recognize them as sources of food and will steal them from you. We observed several cases of baboons jumping into cars with open doors and trying to take things - often with people still in the car! The baboon below snatched a white plastic bag from the trunk of a car and then made his way through its contents. He watched intently when the rightful owner walked by investigating options to retrieve the bag. The baboon finished off the lunch and then went looking for more.