Cape Town: Robben Island and the Waterfront

After a straight-forward but still painful 16 hours of travel, I arrived in Cape Town around midnight last night. My hotel is just what I wanted. Walking distance from tons of restaurants, clean, spacious, includes breakfast, and comfortable. The fact that the night tables and lamps don't match and the furniture is mostly second hand actually makes it more inviting. I have been super lucky - this is wintertime in South Africa and I was fully prepared for tons of rain, wind, and cold. But this week has 0% chance of rain and a weekend high of 28C!! It still gets really cold at night though; I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night my room was so cold. Will definitely be purchasing a hat, gloves, and a sleeping bag before leaving for Namibia.

This morning I walked to the office of an adventure tour company recommended by my agent. Together we set up what promises to be am incredible 5 nights in Cape Town. Four days is hardly going to do the city justice! Today I walked to the waterfront area (beautiful except a seagull dived at me and took a bite of my sub!) and strolled around before taking the ferry for the Robben Island tour. I had hoped to have finished Mandela's book before doing this, but this is where it best fit in the schedule....and the book is taking a long time anyways. The ferry ride over was beautiful - fantastic views of Table Mountain and the city.

The tour was okay...The island is best known as a political prison for anti-apartheid freedom fighters, but actually has seen 500 years of banished people. It started with a bus tour that gives the non-jail history of the island....Leper Colony, WWII fortification, shipwrecks, the lighthouse...and also showed us the lime quarry where the political prisoners worked, the "house" where Robert Sobukwe (leader of the Pan African Congress) was held for six years....despite being charged or convicted of anything, just because the government thought he was a political threat...and a few other buildings.

Then we met with an ex-political prisoner (ours served 5 years for simply joining the ANC, a banned organization) who showed us around the prison and told us what it was like. It was pretty bad - forty to a room all day except for about 8 hours when they had to work in a lime quarry, terrible food, etc. But they organized political lectures among themselves, smuggled in newspapers, and organized comedy shows to keep their spirits up. They also campaigned to start a soccer league which became very official. (Lots of displays on that given the recent world cup.) The tour ended with a walk past Mandela's cell where he spent 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. The leadership had their own small cells so they couldn't continue to influence the rest of the members. Didn't really work that well.

Met another girl traveling alone on the ferry - she is volunteering rehabilitating African penguins and knew someone who just left for the same place I am going to in Namibia. Small world....

Also, today I realized that there are very few American chains here. Most noticeably haven't seen a Starbucks at all, only one McDonalds and two KFCs...missing the Starbucks mostly! Unrelatedly, the biggest danger I have identified here are the insane drivers. Picture the confusing pedestrian signals of Boston combined with even more aggressive drivers. I am assuming pedestrians do not have right of way. That, and the seagulls...

Tomorrow I am going....swimming with sharks! 5:40 am pick-up so will be a very early night for me! I told you it is an exciting town! Underwater camera should come in very handy!