Day 16 - South Africa - Cape of Good Hope & Robben Island

Attempt #2 at reaching the Cape of Good Hope. This time we cannot fail, since we woke up early in the morning.

The trick this time will be getting back to the Waterfront in time to catch the 1:00 ferry over to Robben Island. A few baboons tried to get in our way. One was guarding the entrance:

But we made it to the cape with plenty of time to check out the scenery via the funicular (yeah, yeah, I know you can hike it.)


First stop, the lighthouse.


The weather was nice, so the views from atop the hill were awesome. We ran into a Chinese tour group, and they helped us take this shot. Now that I think about it, we've encountered a Chinese tour group in every country of this trip. I guess that China's upper-middle is really growing!

Lots of people say that this is where you see the Atlantic ocean meet the Indian ocean (or at least where the two currents meet).

We weren't sure we could make that out, but the views of the Cape of Good Hope were enough to merit some pictures.


We headed down the hill again to check out the Cape of Good Hope in closer detail.


Of course, the requisite shot with the sign.
Still trying to figure out what it means to be "most South-Western." I guess if you drew a diagonal line between latitude and longitude and drug it across the Atlantic, the Cape of Good Hope would be the first point that it hits? I wonder what Africa's south-south-western-most point is.

We hiked around on the rocks for 15 minutes or so. Tried out some of the camera's timed-shot capabilities.

Before racing back to the Robben Island launch point. We were pretty rushed for time, so we grabbed a bite to eat from the local hotdog vendor. This one wins for worst-meal-of-the-trip. We ordered the double-dog with barbeque Chili. We had to throw away half of a "dog"... it was that bad.

The Robben Island ferry took about 20 minutes to arrive -- (by the way, many thanks to Chuck and Erin for making Robben Island possible -- really loving all the honeyfund items!) -- and we were immediately presented with stark photos of the history of the island as a prison for South Africa's political prisoners.

This, for example, is the limestone quarry where Nelson Mandela spent nearly 13 years working before he was freed and then voted President of the country. The little cave in the back was their toilet -- everyone had to share a single bucket on the ground.


This is his prison cell, pretty sparse.

Here is the prison's daily menu -- as you can see, even in prison, there was apartheid being practiced, with Asian and coloured prisoners getting more food than the black prisoners.


The island is clearly no longer a prison today, and with the wildflowers and wildlife and ocean views, seems almost a pleasant place to be.


I even snapped a picture of Big Bird from the bus:


The ferry trip back also provided some nice views of Cape Town, including the rare clear views of Table Mountain:


As this was our last night in Cape Town, we decided we had to get at least one meal of African game. Here's Ian's plate of ostrich, springbok, and kudu. Looks just like beef, eh?
The place we went, Marco's African Cafe, specializes in game meats -- and we lucked out by choosing to visit on a Jazz night -- so we rounded out our Cape Town week with some "jazz", African style.