The “Bollywood to South Beach” Voyage, part 21

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, December 06 2009 @ 07:00 AM CST

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-one

Breaking the format a bit, we start this post with the end of the last one . . . the actual sunset at Signal Hill, Cape Town, South Africa:

More after the jump . . . November 21 (Saturday, Day 24, Cape Town, South Africa) –

Seal on the dock at the V&A

Clock Tower, where we waited for the ferry to Robben Island

We joined the tour to Robben Island which started with a 30-minute ferry ride to the island, kind of like Alcatraz. It has been a prison and insane asylum for over four centuries. Since 1960 political prisoners were kept there and the last one was released in 1991. Past political prisoners are now the tour guides which has to bring that horror back to them on a daily basis, but with unemployment in South Africa around 40%, any job is considered a good job. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 17 years and we saw his cell (and bucket that he had to use as a toilet) that he lived in for his last 8 years. He was also made to work for 6 hours a day in the limestone quarry. Nothing was done with the lime and each day the prisoners had to just move it to different parts of the quarry. The dust and glare from the lime damaged their eyes and today no one is allowed to use flash when photographing Nelson Mandela for this reason. The weather was gorgeous and we were told that during the prior two weeks, most of the ferries to Robben Island were canceled due to bad weather. We are lucking out, that’s for sure!