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Published: June 11th 2005
The first photo on the right was Nelson Mandela's cell for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on Robben Island. It's tiny. Mandela is a tall man, so he couldn't sleep straight in the cell. The tour of Robben Island is a must see attraction from Cape Town. Along with the Sector 6 Museum. Sector 6 was a multi racial inner city district of Cape Town. It's very existence was living proof of the nonsense of apartheid fascistic social engineering. So, the apartheid authorities bulldozed the whole area, and moved the population out onto the sands of the Cape Flats.
Robben island is now a world heritage site and a tourist trap. But it is a very good tour. All the tour guides are themselves ex-political prisoners, and have harrowing tales to tell of the horrors of apartheid.
Cape Town is also a very scenic city, when it's not raining! I have arrived here in the low season, when it's cold and wet. I've seen a lot of rain, but it did clear up for a few days which allowed me to get up Table Mountain.
I've been taking it fairly
Cape Town
Table Mountain from the waterfronteasy since I've been in Cape Town. I'll just give you a brief run down of recent events.
THURSDAY 2nd
I arrived the previous evening by budget airline. The weather was dreadful. So, I used the opportunity to catch up on my blogging. I used most of the day putting the previous blog entry to this one on the web. I didn't do much else. I was though moved from a private room into a dorm in the backpackers for the night. Not only was it very wet, but it was freezing cold in the dorm at night.
FRIDAY 3rd
I went on a tour of the wine growing regions near Cape Town. It was a fairly private tour, there were only 2 of us, sharing a minibus that could take 7. We left at 9am with Cape Wine Tours. Our guide was a cheery Afrikaner. The tour started at Villiera in Stellenbosch, with a cellar tour. We visited 2 other wineries, the towns of Stellenbosh and Franschhoek. We got back to Cape Town in the evening at about 5pm, passing several accidents on the road back. It was cold and wet
all day.
SATURDAY 4th JUNE
Finally the sky's cleared. So, I took he opportunity to go to Table Mountain. I walked from the backpackers to the cable car station, which took about an hour. The top of the mountain was covered in fog when I arrived at 11am. In the cable car, I talked to a man who was very knowledgeable about the mountain. He told me about a free tour organized by the mountaineering club for tourists. He was going on the tour because he was intending to become a volunteer guide. At the top of the mountain, I had a coffee in the cafe and waited around for the tour to start. As it got close to midday the sky started to clear, some times on one side of the mountain, then on the other. It was quite funny to watch the tourist dashing about the mountain, chasing the clearings in the cloud cover. At midday I joined the free tour of the top of the mountain. It was very informative, although it was very cold.
After the tour I walked back into town, I continued past Long Street where I
was staying. I walked all the way down to the waterfront. It looked very quiet considering it was a Saturday afternoon.
SUNDAY 5th
I went on the 11 am trip to Robben Island. It left from the V and A waterfront. Robben Island is where many political prisoners spent half a life time. After the trip, I had a very good meal in a waterfront restaurant.
MONDAY 6th
At 10.30am I went on a walking tour of Cape Town. The highlight of the tour is the visit to the District 6 Museum, which shows the devastating effects of Apartheid on people's lives; the whole place was bulldozed because of apartheid's mad fascistic politics. The tour also goes though the Company's Garden . The Company referred to is the East India Company - basically in the early years the East India Company owned the Cape Colony. The tour also passed Parliament and went into St George's Anglican Cathedral. The Anglican Cathedral is where Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu preached against the evils of Apartheid. He was the first black Arch Bishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa. He was not the first Anglican
to stand up against apartheid. A former archbishop had refused to allow the authorities to segregate the church. We also visited Grand Parade where Mandela was welcomed back after 27 years. There were also other sites that were pointed out which have no monuments to them. Opposite the District 6 museum is a building which was a police station into which many political prisoners disappeared. It was also the site of a major demonstration organized by Robert Sobukwe of the Pan African Congress. The PAC organized a campaign where thousands of people marched on police stations and burned their pass books. Tens of thousands marched from the townships outside Cape Town to that police station, inviting the police to arrest them. The police responded with brutal violence. Robert Sobukwe was imprisoned on Robben Island, and died long before he could see the end of apartheid.
After the walking tour, I had lunch, then went to the waterfront. I bought some US dollars, which was a painfully slow process!
TUESDAY 7th
Didn't do much all day but mooch around the shops! The weather had turned again. It was cold and wet. I did though change
where I was staying. I went up market, and moved to the City Lodge, which cost me R670 a night. I had been paying only R110 for a single room, and R70 for the night I spent in the dormitory.
WEDS 8th
I again walked around the centre of town, revisiting all the places I had been to on the walking tour a couple of days before. I also, though visited Cape Town's Castle. The Castle was built by the East India Company, the building work began in 1655. I walked to the V and A waterfront for lunch. I went out in the evening, again to the waterfront visiting a Bistro and the cinema.
I will be flying tomorrow to Jo'burg. I have booked a tour through Botswana starting on the 10th, leaving from Jo'burg.
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