May 7: Robben Island and the Waterfront

The day did not start well, despite the beautiful sunrise on Table Mountain.

Table Mountain aglow from our balcony

I lost my clip-on sunglasses (I hate clip-ons). We left the house without our guidebook. And I went to the wrong bus stop. But things got better fairly quickly, as we made it to the Waterfront area by 9:15 AM, in plenty of time to buy tickets for the 11 AM sailing to Robben Island. So we had more than an hour to kill, which we did readily in the V&A Waterfront area, a space with cool old buildings…

Harbourmaster's House. 1904

…cool new buildings…

V&A Market's Alfred Mall 

V&A Market

…making a merging of the two in an active, working port, a fun experience.

Yes, they have a ferris wheel 

Made for John Lennon's death, and has been shown around the world 

The Pinotage. There's also a Merlot. 

The breakwall 

Cheezy frames are scattered around the city. 

The footbridge to the Clock Tower and Mandela Museum 

Working fishing boats.

We got to ride the Dias…

A movie set!

…which if you have seen the movie INVICTUS, is the ferry the rugby team uses to go to Robben Island, too.

The 45 minute ferry ride was fun, passing container ships and LNG tankers.

The Glomar Penguin, last out of Tokyo in January

…before coming to the island…

A slight rise in the ocean

…which has great views back to Cape Town.

The iconic Table Mountain

The island also has endangered terns, who nest on and around the road, and the baby terns that walk onto the road, meaning the busses have to be very careful to avoid them.

Terns nesting 

The terns

After exploring about 5% of the island (including the leper graves, because it was once a leper colony), the bus tour starts you on the process of understanding the prison, including a visit to the limestone quarry where Mandela and other labourers mined rocks for no reason other than to make them work at hard labour, often mining them just to make piles that they could move from one end of the quarry to another. Prisoners (including Mandela) developed eye problems from the bright light reflected in the white quarry.

Note the pile of rocks on the right

That cave was their toilet. Five years after the prisoners were released, many, including Mandela, returned to build that pile of stones, which is an African healing tradition.

We saw where Robert Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement – but with all the comforts of home, except being kept away from anyone else for 6 years, unable to speak to anyone. The guard dogs of the prison were kept next to his house.

Puppy homes

When we finally got to the prison itself, our tour guide was gentleman who was a political prisoner at Robben Island, jailed at age 21, for being part of the ANC political movement. Captured upon returning to South Africa after training in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Angola, he was sentenced to 25 years, and served 6, being released with the end of apartheid.

He led us through the prison, explaining what prison life was like for the 4,000-odd political prisoners held on the island.

Entering the prison

60 prisoners were held in his communal cell, with lights on at 5:30 AM and off at 9 PM, three shitty meals a day (the menu was on the wall), outside work 5 days a week (he cut seaweed for no reason), one outdoor day a week playing soccer or tennis, one lockdown day a week.

His cell block 

Home to 60 

His bunk was the corner bottom one 

Glass was added in the late 1970's 

Before the bunks? A mat and 2 blankets 

The menu, one for blacks and one for coloureds

Hot water was only made available in the mid-1970’s, the metal bunks and window glass were added in the late ‘70’s. Because the prison was only for political prisoners, they spent all their time discussing politics. The leaders, like Mandela, were kept in their own block, in private cells.

Mandela's outdoor courtyard. He grew tomatoes 

Mandela's window onto the courtyard

Our guide told us that the best thing that happened was to put all the political prisoners in one place, where they debated and unified plans, theories, strategies and the core of what eventually became the South African constitution when apartheid ended. The created non-violence strategies for ending apartheid which they were able to communicate to the outside world.

Mandela lived in this one cell -- with no bed, no toilet (that was the brown pot), no sink (that was the metal bowl) a thin pad and two blankets as a bed -- for 18 years. It’s 2 m by 3 m, which is smaller than my bathroom, and today, it's exactly the way it was when he was imprisoned there.

Home for 18 years

Moving.

Mandela and the other leaders could only interact with other inmates on Saturday, sports day. The logic at the time was that by isolating the leaders, they couldn't influence others. In fact, by isolating the leaders, the leaders unified, and were able to better lead.

The downside to visiting Robben Island is that you can only do so on a bus tour. They used to let people on the island to wander around and discover the place for themselves (and there are interpretive signs all over), but people were taking souvenirs, damaging the buildings, and making a mess of the endangered animals that live on the island (like the terns, oystercatchers and penguins). So now, you take the ferry to the island, get on a bus, get escorted around on a guided tour, get escorted through the prison, then get on the ferry and go home. There’s not even time for lunch if you take the 11 AM ferry. Sigh.

The prison entrance

The ferry ride home was just as pretty as the ride across.

Iconic still

Once back at the wharf, we continued exploring. 

The drawbridge swings... 

...for a passing yacht 

Tugs and fishing vessels come and go 

A baby cannon 

Ever-present Table Mountain

We saw Nobel Square, dedicated to the 4 South Africans who have won the Nobel Peace Prize (Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, De Klerk - who ended apartheid with Mandela- and Luthuli).

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The Waterfront area has a couple of awesome modern buildings from an architectural perspective. The first is the Water Shed, a modernized old dock building transformed into a spectacular indoor market, with small stall spaces for retailers.

The entrance 

Former dock cranes juxtapose with new architecture 

A new and as yet unfinished 2nd floor 

View to the stalls below 

The open air mall 

The view down the 2nd floor

The second is a converted old pumphouse, transformed into the best food court and eating space I have ever seen, which my photos just do not do justice to.

The exterior 

The inside, or at least, a small part of it. It smelled great

The V&A Market itself is JASM (just another shopping mall – though at 450 stores and 120,000 m2, a very, very big one) but at least it’s a pretty one, and the fact that it’s in the middle of an active, working harbour is very cool.

The top floor of one of the 6 wings 

A crew working outside in the drydock

Robben Island is pretty amazing, more so because you get to hear first hand from former inmates what life was like as a prisoner.

They forgot to mention reconcilliation

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Today’s Africa Travel Tip: Security, Part 1

If you’re coming to Cape Town, which the article I read yesterday said was the 8th most dangerous city on the planet (this article ranks it #4, worse than Kabul and Mogadishu), you might be worried about security. Well, the Cape Town Central District has green clad “Public Security” staff at the rate of probably 2 guys per block in the downtown core. The V&A Waterfront has security every 200 m.

Generally, there are security guards everywhere. They guard the ATMs on the street, most every consequential building’s entrance, every mall, every market, and are everywhere. All nightclubs have them. Interestingly, few are armed. They all have radios and most have nightsticks.

Now, many don’t give you massive confidence that they’ll do much, but they’re there. They won’t stop the incessant street beggars (who, for the record, work one block each. You get pestered for a block, then cross the road, and a new guy starts). In fact, I’ve never seen a security guard do anything (which is probably good, actually). But if you need info, they’re good guys to ask.

More on what they do and don’t do in the next Africa Travel Tip.