South Africa -- Day 5

Up super early today to fly to Capetown. It worked out that my brother had to fly out of Johannesburg Airport today for a business meeting, so Jess and I got up and rode with him. Even though our flight was not until 9:00 AM, his flight was at 6:30 AM, meaning to the airport by 5:30 AM… meaning up at 4:30 AM! As I said, an early morning. We made it to the airport in plenty of time and Jess and I had a fun treat. My brother’s company flies them Business Class (SAA’s equivalent of first class), so we got to go into the super-fancy Business Class lounge with him and hang out until our flight. The lounge was really, really nice. They had breakfast foods out for everyone, computers to use, a full bar and tons of comfortable lounge chairs and sofas. We had a little breakfast, said goodbye to my brother, and Jess and I went and sought out a private spot where we could curl up and nap until our flight time. We catnapped until about 7:45, then gathered up our things and headed back out to the main airport. I picked up a converter to use with my electronics while in Capetown, a few souvenirs and headed to our gate. We boarded a bus to our plane and got all settled in. I napped for most of the flight.

Once we landed in Capetown, we had a car meet us in the airport (it was fun to walk out and see the guy holding the “SHARPE” sign!) and take us to our hotel. I had booked us tickets to go to Robben Island for this day, so we were hoping to get checked in and back out the door pretty quickly. It all worked out fine, although I did request a different room than our original room. I had heard about the amazing views of Table Mountain from some of the rooms and our first room didn’t have that, so I asked if we could be moved. They gave us a really nice room this time, with a really pretty view. They were so nice about it! We dropped our bags and headed back down to the lobby to get a shuttle to the V&A Waterfront, where our tour left from. We arrived and got a little confused as the gentleman tried to tell us where he would pick us up. We figured we’d figure that out later – we wanted to make it to our tour on time. We were actually early and had time for lunch (cheeseburger for me, ostrich burger for Jess) before heading to Nelson Mandela Gateway.

The tour itself begins in the museum and you then board a ferry to take you across Table Bay to Robben Island, Mandela’s prison for years. Once you arrive on the island, you board a bus that takes you around the grounds and shows you the different areas. There are actually families still living on the grounds with a total island population of around 100 people. The island was originally for lepers, and later razed and burned, then  turned into a prison for both criminals and political prisoners The political prisoners worked all day in limestone quarries, cutting rocks (which permanently damaged Mandela’s eyes). The prison was only for Blacks, Coloureds and Indians/Asians, no Whites were kept on Robben Island. We saw the cells (which were tiny) and I actually got a picture of Mandela’s actual cell. They slept on a bedroll on the ground. The food was terrible and there were certain things that prisoners of some of the races were allowed to have to eat that prisoners of other races were not (i.e. Blacks were not allowed any jams or syrups). Some also got lesser amounts of food. All of this part of the tour was done for us by an ex-political prisoner. The tour was fascinating.

On the walk back to the ferry, I got some pictures of some of the penguins that live on the island! We rode the ferry back across the Bay and decided to head back to the hotel. After a mile walk to find the stupid pickup point, we finally managed to get back to the shuttle to take us home. We had dinner in the restaurant in the hotel (called Yizani) and headed back to our room to crash. This was the longest day and we were exhausted! I Skyped home before crashing and burning around… I don’t even know what time! All I know is that we had to be up at 6:00 AM for our next tour tomorrow!