Robben Island

The bus for the tour of the island

Like in San Francisco, here in Cape Town there is an island in the bay just before Cape Town, which houses a very famous prison: Robben Island. Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners spent many years there. Mandela 27 years of his live. They guides are former prisoners and they tell you they used to call this place the "university", because they exchanged a lot of ideas there. 

Unlike Alcatraz, Robben Island is a pretty big island. There is a whole village there, at least 3 different prisons and the third largest colony of south african penguins. There is a quarry there and many different species of birds and deer. Besides it being a prison and the horrors a prison holds, the island is beautiful. You can see to Bloubergstrand and Cape Town with it's mountains. 

inside the prison

third larges penguin colony

The Robben Island Tour is very touristy and very planned. It is a beautiful landscape around the prison, but you aren't allowed to enjoy it by foot. There is a guided tour through the prison, afterwards there is a guided bus tour around the island to see quarry and the other prisons. You are not allowed to walk around the island yourself. At least we saw a few penguins from the bus. We wanted to go see the colony in the few minutes between bus and boat, but there were no penguins there.

The whole idea of imprisoning politicians was to contain political movements all around the country, but as the guide phrased it most accurately "...political marches mushroomed all around Africa..."

(first time I heard this word as a verb and I love it)