Yesterday we visited a section of Table Mountain National Park, a part that was formerly called Cape Peninsula Park. The latter includes a large natural area that houses the extreme southwestern tip of Africa: The Cape of Good Hope.
On the night before, though, we dined on bobotie, a recipe from the Cape Malay region of South Africa, though Wikipedia gives it an ancient origin. Rita made the salad and main dish:
Bobotie appears to be a variant of patinam ex lacte, a dish documented by the ancient Roman writer Apicius consisting of layers of cooked meat, pine nuts, and seasoned with pepper, celery seeds and asafoetida. These were cooked until the flavours had blended, when a top layer of egg and milk was added. When the latter had set, the dish was ready to be served. C. Louis Leipoldt, a South African writer and gourmet, wrote that the recipe was known in Europe in the seventeenth century.
The bobotie, made with fruit as well, was terrific:
But Martim, who, I’m told, is a creditable baker, made a pear crumble with chocolate. I had it with sour cream on top. Yum!
On the drive there, we saw dozens of chacma baboons by the roadside, along with many signs saying “Beware of baboons” or “Do not feed the baboons.” They are hungry and aggressive, and often vicious. If show them a banana, you have a good chance of dying. This one was grooming another, and the groomee apparently enjoyed its belly rub.
A troop. The babies are very cute, but the signs have made me scared of them. As I said before, a few years ago one of these squalid primates, being chased by a guard, jumped on Martim’s back and knocked him over.
A map of the park, which occupies the Peninsula. There’s a large “false bay” to the east which fooled early sailors who took a hard left at the Cape of Good Hope prominence at the tip of the Peninsula. Rather then turning into the false bay, you take a gentle left and, lo, you’re on the way around Africa.
The first European to circle the southern tip of Africa was the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias in early 1488, paving the way for a route from Europe to India. Dias was in on the beginning of Vasco da Gama‘s successful expedition that made it to India exactly ten years later, and then returned. (Dias, however, got off at the Cape Verde Islands, and died on another venture around Africa in 1500, perishing in a storm—ironically at the Cape of Good Hope.)
This area is where the warm currents of the Indian Ocean meet the frigid currents from Antarctica. This is described below:
The entrance to False Bay, with the Cape of Good Hope (a small mountain) to the right and out of sight (see below):
The False Bay is where you wind up if you make a hard left at the Cape of Good hope. You have to make a gentle left heading towards Gansbaai and then keep hugging the African coast to really circle the southern tip of Africa:
The Cape of Good Hope, described as the extreme southwest tip of Africa, is the smallish “mountain” denuded of vegetation, to the rear:
Lo, the Cape of Good Hope:
A happy kid and his dad at the Cape. (The kid was laughing, not crying.)
A “pagoda”, or species of Mimetes, related to Proteus:
A cluster spiderhead (Serruria glomerata), a narrow endemic in the area:
Common silkypuff (Diastella divaricata), also found only on the Cape Peninsula:
A plant with the Afrikaans name of Hangertjies (Erica plukenetii):
Watch out for tortoises! Apparently the park is loaded with tortoises, but it was chilly yesterday and none showed. We did see one reptile (see below):
A black girdled lizard (Cordylus niger), which occurs only in several mountains on the Cape Peninsula, so it’s a narrow endemic:
Spot the lizard, peeking out for a bit of sun:
A sign by a steep cliff near the Cape of Good Hope. The meaning is clear:
A common eland (Taurotragus oryx), the second largest antelope in the world after the giant eland (also of Africa). Note two red-winged starlings on its back, eating the mammal’s parasites.
The widespread Greater Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii), distributed widely in the tropical and subtropical Old World:
Cape cormorants (Phalacrocorax capensis) and one white-breasted cormorant (Phalacrocorax lucidus).
The park harbors common ostriches (Struthio camelus), and three of them crossed the road ahead of us. I was terribly excited as this was the first ratite I’d seen in the wild. They are BIG! (The black color gives this away as a male; females are browner.)
Evolution wound up with some strange (but well adapted) products:
One of several bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus), a medium-sized antelope.
They have white butts:
Martim took these pictures for me; the birds come to a feeder in our garden. This is a Cape White-Eye (Zosterops virens), native to southern Africa. The source of its name is obvious.
And two photos of a beautiful male Southern double-collared sunbird (Cinnyris chalybeus); the female is brown. As you can guess from where it’s sitting and the shape of its bill, it’s a nectar feeder. It’s a metallic malachite green with a red and a yellow collar:
On to Kruger today (if the weather is okay)!
So wonderful – so glad to see this – magnificent!
Who else learned eland and bontebuck from Kipling? I’m enjoying all the tales come to life, in a way!
So cool! Interesting that the Cape of Good Hope is such a small spot. In my elementary school textbooks (and, I think, on a globe I had as a child), it seemed that the whole of the coast of the southern African continent was the Cape of Good Hope. The text on the map was way out of scale.
Interesting that the baboons are so violent. Scary!
It looks like you are eating well!
I remember the Cape of Good Hope from school geography class and maps the same way Norman does…blunt and broad. Very interesting to see it in its detail.
Fantastic photos into the nothingness of the oceans beyond the cape headlands. Next stop: Antarctica! Amazing that the cape is only 34 degrees south latitude. What a lopsided world we live on.
Have a great time in Kruger, Jerry, and thanks for your visit! We really enjoyed having you here and all the touring we did together!
I made it to Hoedspruit and after a day of rest and wart-hog observation am heading to the Manyelete Reserve the day after tomorrow. I’ve already fed a nyala by hand and seen Ozy in all his warty glory!
Thanks a ton to you and Martim for putting me up and taking me all around, not to mention the airport trips. None of these posts would be possible without your hospitality.
Good to hear you made it safely and are having fun!
Thank you Rita and Martim! And I love the infinite view from your house.
Thank you, we do too 🙂
Bobotie with white rice? Sacrilege! It should be eaten with yellow rice – ie rice to which turmeric was added.
Wonderful post! Thanks.
Wasn’t at False Bay, where great white sharks jumped out of water to catch sea lions?
Anyway, keep posting your fantastic pics.
Yes, this is the place.
Unfortunately in the last years, whites sharks have almost disappeared from the area. Several factors may be involved (climate change, sea temperatures, food availability…), but it the end it seems that the culprits may be two orcas/killer whales, that go by the name of Port and Starboard (direction where their dorsal fin bends) that specialised in hunting the sharks just for their livers. It seems they created an extremely terrifying ‘landscape of fear’…
https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-023-00224-x
Yes, I read something about…
At the Mediterranean, -well, sort of, at Gibraltar- last year the MSM were full of sensationalism nonsense, because the interactions of a group of orcas with boats, yachts, Biologists call Gladis to an orca who interacts with a boat.Pretty scary, really.I hope you find this link useful.I haven’t checked if there are English subtitles, sorry 😐
https://youtu.be/Cre7gykskX8?si=IkUMFWgBltBVTWWm
Yes, quite right! (But don’t worry Jerry, it tastes very much the same!)
You are so lucky and privileged to see the fantastic biodiversity of South Africa.
It should be at the top of the travel list for bird and plant watchers. One of the six floristic kingdoms of the earth…..how it got that way is still a mystery. Soil,
geology, two oceans, mountains, climate…..unique and a place no one should miss. Aardvarks and protea…incredible succulents….endless.
Truly beautiful photos today. The wildlife and flowers are so exotic. The ocean such a deep dark blue and the greenery so very green. Gorgeous spot on our earth. Spectacular! Thanks again for sharing your travels with us.
Great pics and commentary, but why are the baboons described as ‘squalid’?
They are apparently dirty and also, I’m told, smell bad. They also dig through garbage. It was just a semantic joke, anyway.
Interesting to see the black cordylid. I wonder if this colour is a selective response to a cool environment.
But why did the ostriches cross the road?
Because it was too far to go around.
I like to think of it as “The Cape of Good Pope”, because this is how the transcribers of the 1881 UK census transcribed the birthplace of my Great Great Grandmother and family from the handwriting on the census form!