When you’ve seen Africa’s cats, pachyderms, hoofed animals and birds...you might, incorrectly, think there’s not much left.

    Baboons and monkeys are favorites of children and adults, although we visited three places where they were incredible nuisances. At Cape of Good Hope we were in a restaurant when a baboon raced in when someone opened the door, leapt up on the table next to us, snatched food, and dashed out...all in six seconds. At one of the other parks, we saw baboons break into vehicles and tear open luggage (don’t ever park with a sunroof open). One hotel had so many monkeys they were underfoot...literally.

   Hyenas, jackals and wild dogs can be interesting to watch, especially in family groupings or when there’s food to fight over and kinship goes out the proverbial window.  You’ll see plenty of the first two in Kenya and Tanzania, but encroaching farming and urban development has resulted in wild dogs being exterminated to the point they are endangered in many areas.

   I really don’t have much to say about these except that if you keep your eyes open when traveling in Africa, there are lots of interesting plants, animals, bugs, birds, trees  and geologic formations. Some of the ‘critters’ seen here were only seen once on our entire trip.