Table Mountain & Robben Island

Day 4: Today we went to two places, Table Mountain, and Robben Island. We started the morning at Table Mountain, a mountain overlooking Cape Town. (It is called Table Mountain because it is flat on top). When we get there there we learn that it is classified as one of "the new seven natural wonders of the world". After going through a long line, we get into an insanely fast cable car with a rotating floor that gives us a 360 degree view while bringing us to the top in 2 or 3 minutes. The top is part of a mountain range and there are tons of hiking trails so we go on a hike and see a lot of these cute creatures called dassies.

In the afternoon, we head down to the waterfront to catch our ferry for Robben island, the place where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner! Nelson Mandela was an black South African Anti-Apartheid revolutionary who then became president of the new South Africa after the fall of Apartheid in 1994. Mandela spent 27 years in prison over the course of his life, much of that time on Robben Island. We were transported to the island by a boat that was used to bring the prisoners to the island. Until 1994, South Africa was segregated very badly, through a system called Apartheid, much like in the U.S South before 1960. Back then, Robben Island was a very cruel place, used to hold African political prisoners (not just South African but also from liberation movements around Africa).

When we get there we go on a tour of the prison, led by a former prisoner. We learn how bad the conditions were. It was also weird because there were different standards for ‘coloreds’ versus ‘bantu’ (or blacks). ‘Coloreds’ or ‘Cape Coloreds’ was the name given to people of mixed race in the Western Cape part of South Africa. Their heritage is mixed but they are South Africans whose ancestors were brought as slaves (called “the slaves of Malay”) from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar and Mozambique to South Africa to work on plantations and they are the main ethnic group in the Western Cape today. Though the tour was supposed to start at 3pm (15.00hr) and have us back to the docks by 6pm, we arrived back in Cape Town at 9pm (21.00hr). It was kind of funny, we lost our bus driver on the island and the ferry ride back took a long time.

When we returned to shore we opted to eat dinner at a restaurant specializing in South African Food. I had the strangest meal of my life: the foods I ate were warthog, ostrich, and alligator. The ostrich was my favorite; it tasted exactly like steak, but better. The alligator was my least favorite because it tasted like chicken, but worse. The warthog tasted like ham crossed with pork chop (hamchop), just tougher. We stayed up so late, my sister and I both fell asleep in the restaurant wrapped in a blankets at the dinner table.