Robben Island

Robben Island is a small island north of Cape Town (the geography of Cape Town was constantly screwing with Rob's head. He had always figured that it was on the southern coast of South Africa, but it's really on the western coast and, due to the shape of the bay, it actually faces north/northwest. If it weren't for the giant mountain as a reference point, he would have been hopelessly lost. We're explaining this because if you were like Rob, you would think that an island north of Cape Town was in the middle of South Africa). The island was home to the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment and the prison (and island) is now a museum. 

The tour of the island is in three parts. The first part is a 25 minute video that plays on the ferry on the way to the island, which gives some of the history of the island and an informative background of the politics and discrimination of the apartheid era. But, if you're like Rob and you ride on the top of the ferry so you can take 40 pictures of sailboats, you miss the video and only find out about it after the fact... But just look at that sailboat.  So peaceful.

The second part of the tour is a 45 minute bus tour around the island. The bus tour is led by a museum guide, who was incredibly informative and funny and the tour was really good, but you never leave the bus and the windows are closed, so you can't really take pictures. They are trying to preserve the island, so it's understandable that they don't need thousands of tourists tromping all over, and while you don't really need pictures of the guards' houses or other infrastructure, there were a couple of places that it would have been nice to see up close. 

The final part of the tour is the prison itself. The tour guides are either former prisoners or former guards. Rob's guide was a former prisoner named Glen, who had been imprisoned for six years for organizing protests against the apartheid government. Glen had mixed feelings about returning to the prison, which is understandable of course, but even more incredible when you learn that the tour guides all live on the island with their families (Glen says the ex-prisoners and the ex-guards don't really hang out). 

The prisoners on Robben Island were forced to do manual labor. There is a limestone quarry where many of them, including Mandela, dug limestone and where the dust and bright light off the stone caused many of them to lose some of their eyesight. They also built extensions of the prison and all the buildings (and tennis courts, etc) that the guards lived in. The prison was built using slate from the island and the buildings are strangely beautiful.  

Depending on the offense or sentence of the prisoner, they either lived in a community room, with 24 to a room, or alone in a tiny cell. Despite the circumstances, the political prisoners were very organized and created a network to teach each other to read, write, and other skills. Over time, the prisoners fought for and got the right to receive newspapers and a radio, so they were able to get a little access to the outside world. Though it gradually improved, for many years, the waiting list for family members to visit took almost 2 years to 'process.' Eventually, they were able to take correspondence courses and receive degrees. Mandela was moved to another prison in 1984, in part (some say) to prevent or disrupt the education and organization of the younger generation of prisoners. In fact many political prisoners were moved in the early eighties, though the prison remained in use until 1996. 

After the tour, visitors have about 15 minutes to wander around until the ferry is ready and most people go check out the island's penguin colony. The locals seem to think this is somewhat ridiculous- as our bus guide said, "The penguins are over there. People seem to like them. If you've never seen one, they are white and black." However, if you ever go, the time is better spent wandering the standing exhibit in the prison, which Glen may or may not have mentioned to his group (Glen's method of giving a tour was pretty much to not stop talking, whether or not everyone had caught up to him or not). 

Rob says a tour of Robben Island is a must if you visit Cape Town. He is (and he suspects, most Americans are) fairly ignorant of most of South Africa's history and Robben Island is a stunning introduction to apartheid, as seen through the eyes of a political prisoner. 

The view of Table Mountain from a cell on Robben Island