From Antoniesgat, a short stroll north along the Meadows under Matrooskop brings you to Buffels Bay and the Suikerbrood tidal pool. Cape Point's only easily accessible beach and close to ablution facilities and the Buffelsfontein visitors' centre, Buffels Bay is not my favourite place.
It's full of people and, where you find people and baboons interacting, people generally misbehave.
Tour operators and tourists caught baiting baboons so they can take pictures of them will be criminally charged, the City of Cape Town said on Monday.
"Any tour operator caught doing so can be charged under national conservation legislation," said the city's executive director for the environment Piet van Zyl in a statement.
"We appeal to the public to exercise extreme caution in interacting with baboons. Under no circumstances should they ever feed the animals and should they do so, they can be similarly (sic) charged," he said.
He was responding to newspaper reports according to which tour operators were throwing food onto the roadside to attract baboons for their clients to photograph.
Along with bontebok and ostrich, you'll find a troop of Chacma baboons at Buffels Bay. A sociable and polite bunch (the baboons — ostriches have no social skills), they give the lie to the signs littering Cape Point, i.e. 'Baboons are dangerous'.
Our local primates can be dangerous when indulging habits taught them by humans, e.g. mugging walkers or hijacking cars. A couple of years’ ago I had a bottle of Coke ripped off me from behind and, more recently, watched as two women, enjoying tea on the beach, had their little niceties spread across the South Peninsula.
But I love the buggers, their two-inch canines and bark that separates you from your skin when ambling along some ostensibly deserted ridge or plain. Given due respect — in short, treat them as you'd be treated — baboons make for damned fine company.
If you can get down to Buffels Bay early or on a weekday, you'll probably find it deserted. With braai facilities stretching back to The Meadows, it's an ideal spot to kick back, watch the sea, and burn some meat. Just keep a wary eye on those baboons — or they'll be the ones eating it.
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