Cape Town

For the last few days we’ve been exploring Cape Town itself, and have been keeping pretty busy! First on our ‘to do’ list was the Slave Lodge, a museum housed surprisingly enough in the old Slave Lodge, where slaves lived (and died) during the Dutch rule. The museum basically explains and illustrates South Africa’s history of slavery, which was really interesting.

As well as the Slave Lodge, we have visited Robben Island, which is I guess best known as the location of the maximum security facility that housed political prisoners during South Africa’s apartheid rule. Visiting the island includes a bus tour, on which you see the house in which Robert Sobukwe (leader of the Pan Africanist Congress) lived in solitary confinement for nine years. We also visited the lime quarry where Nelson Mandela, along with many other prisoners worked for years, causing significant damage to their eyes due to the brightness of the limestone in the African sun. Also on the island we visited the prison, where we were guided by an ex-political prisoner. Our guide was sent to Robben Island in 1984 with a 25 year sentence, meaning he wouldn’t have been released until 2009 if the apartheid rule had not ended in 1990. In the prison we visited a number of the tiny cells that housed inmates, including Nelson Mandela’s cell, which is exactly as it was during his 18 year stay. We also saw the make-shift tennis courts the prisoners engineered, allowing them to pass messages to each other by lobbing tennis balls (with messages inside) over the building! Interestingly, during their stay on the island, a lot of the prisoners gained a comprehensive education, with many leaving with a number of university degrees. At a more basic level, such education started with the prisoners motto of ‘each one, teach one’, illustrating how Robben Island was quite unlike other prisons in the sense of unity between inmates. Unsurprisingly, therefore the island is legendary in South African history, concentrating the energies of liberation. The current President of South Africa was also a prisoner on the island.

We have also been up Table Mountain via the cable car. The views from the top are so amazing, giving a 360 degree view of the city and the cape. From certain points at the top it is possible to see all the way down to Cape Point at the end of the cape. You also get a brilliant view of the Twelve Apostles, as well as being able to see across to the Cape Flats which stretch east from the city. The cable car itself was pretty impressive also, as the floor rotates as you travel up and down, completing a full 360 degree rotation as you journey from bottom to top and vice versa.

As seems to be a habit on this trip, we also visited the Houses of Parliament, which are housed in Cape Town (being one of the three capital cities of South Africa). It was interesting to see how the current administration use the same rooms as were used by the Apartheid Government, without change. Our guide also told us that although South Africa’s parliament works on a two-house system like many other democracies globally, both houses are equal in power. We also found out how the ministers get past the obstacle of the eleven official languages spoken in South Africa (permanent translators!).    

Escaping the cultural side of things, we have also visited the V & A waterfront; the most unAfrican place we’ve visited in South Africa! You could be anywhere in the western world with Subway, Accessorize, Mango and Havianna all present. It is however, a really nice place to while away an afternoon in the sunshine whilst watching the boats, especially as the Volvo Ocean Race is currently passing through.