We visited Robben Island on Wednesday. It’s a small island about 12k from the Cape Town waterfront (about 7k from the nearest land) that was used for several hundred years as a prison. It had a leper colony for a time. Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison here.
We took a ferry over, and despite the sobering nature of the trip and what the island represents, the views were fantastic. The second shot is from Robben Island.
We took a bus tour of the island with several stops. The tour guide shared that while the closing of Robben Island and the end of apartheid was clearly a major milestone for the country, he alluded to the fact that it did not magically solve every issue. He was very measured in his words.
The best part of the tour was a guided tour through the main prison area by a former prisoner. He gave his own story of how he ended up in the prison. He was part of a student protest in Soweto in 1976 that resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. I believe he said he was one of just 19 students arrested and sent to Robben Island though thousands of students participated in the protest. Perhaps he was an organizer; perhaps just unlucky.
He addressed how the government prosecuted the students: they labeled them terrorists. Not to get too political on our little travel blog, but there are parallels to what our own government does today. We have our own island prison for people labeled “terrorists”; we don’t even give them trials. Shame.
Mandela’s cell:
I did actually buy something in the gift store: Mandela’s memoir Long Walk to Freedom. I’m a third of the way through it – remarkable.