Baboons, Dassies and African Penguins September 8, 2013
On my last entry, Lyn and I were in Namibia exploring the desert. We made our way south to Cape Town with stops at Sossusvlei, Fish River Canyon and Franschhoek. For my last entry in South Africa before flying to Mumbai, India, I thought I would tell you about our day exploring Cape Point, South Africa, an area south of Cape Town. It is not the southern most point of Africa, but it was a very interesting day-trip out of Cape Town.
Our first stop on the way to the Cape was Simon’s Town, where we saw the only nesting penguins in Africa. In 1982 there were two nesting pairs of Adelie penguins that had migrated to Simon’s Town. Since then the colony has grown considerably and is now a protected area. I never thought I would be seeing penguins in Africa, but considering the geographic latitude it makes sense.
Our next stop was Cape Point where we encountered baboons and dassies, also known as the Cape Hyrax. I made sketches of both of these animals. Nothing to fear from the cute little dassie, but the baboon is another story. In this coastal park there were several families of baboons that were habituated to human food. With all the tourists that visit this area the baboons spend a lot of time trying to steal food from unsuspecting tourists. It makes for great people watching and seeing there reactions to being robbed by the baboons.
As an artist, I found this small region of Southern Africa that we explored overwhelming with the many choices available to paint. I doubt I will ever finish painting everything I saw here, however in the next blog entry we are heading to Mumbai, India.
Don Barnes ARTISTIC EXPRESSIONS 