The Bahblog

We started Wednesday with a tour of Robben Island. Robben Island is in Table Bay, about 4 miles off of Cape Town. It's been used as prison for most of its history, though it was a leper colony at one point. During Apartheid, it held Nelson Mandela, Kgalema Motlanthe, and Jacob Zuma at various points in time. Today, you can take a boat from Cape Town and tour the island.

The boat ride out to the island was about 40 minutes, but it felt closer to four hours with the rocky seas. We were some of the last to board the ferry and ended up sitting facing backwards in the lower deck. The boat was swaying side to side for most of the ride and I was reminded again of how miserable it is to be seasick. I spent most of the ride leaning against Nate with my eyes closed, counting down to when the boat ride would be over.

But we made it! We started our tour with a bus ride around the island and our guide provided a bit of history.

The Dutch settled the island and used it as a prison beginning in the mid-1700s. It became a leper colony in 1845. During the WWII, the island was fortified and armed to protect Cape Town. Beginning in 1961, the South African government used it as a political prison. The maximum security prison was shut down in 1991 and the only remaining prison was closed in 1996. Today, about 200 people live on the island (most of them work there), but it is only accessible by boat. I'll let the pictures below describe the island, but one thing I do want to call out is the limestone quarry.

Many political prisoners were forced to work in the quarry during the day and they built a little cave when they could rest from the sun during their breaks. Nelson Mandela later called this cave a "university" based on the discussions that were held within it. Many current South African laws were created in that cave during their breaks from forced manual labor.

After the bus tour and a brief break, and took photos ( andwe saw more African penguins!)

Once back on the tour, we met a former political prisoner to walk us around the prison.

He spent most of the time going over living conditions in the prison, but also briefly explained why he was there. As a response to the Soweto uprising, he started his own uprising in the Eastern Cape. He didn't give too many details of his personal time there and instead focused on overall conditions. At the end of the tour, we were shown Nelson Mandela's cell.

The boat ride back to Cape Town was much better because we were able to sit on the upper deck and I had a coke zero to sip.

Once in Cape Town, we walked to Karibu to check another item off of our South African bucket list - eat bobotie! Bobotie is a South African dish that consists of minced meat, dried fruit (typically raisins), and an egg-based topping that is eaten with fruit chutney. My Mom used to make bobotie growing up after coming across the recipe in a cookbook. I made it my goal to eat authentic bobotie while in Cape Town and Karibu is a restaurant known for it. To change things up, Nate ordered traditional bobotie and I had vegan bobotie (with lentils as the base). Both were delicious!! I've already texted my Mom asking her to make bobotie when we return so we can compare (I've told Nate that my Mom's is better).

With our bellies full of bobotie, we walked back to the AirBnB and spent the afternoon relaxing and packing. We walked down to Mojo Market again for dinner and I had a delicious pizza and Nate had sushi and we toasted our wonderful time in Cape Town (though I toasted with tea because my stomach was still rocky from the boat ride).

Today (Thursday) we got up and went for a final run through Cape Town. About half the run was along the waterfront and it was gorgeous. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been and we've absolutely loved everything about this city. We're currently on our way to Madrid via Johannesburg.

As we were eating dinner last night, we realized that our uPack arrived exactly a month ago. It's crazy to think that within the last month we've packed most of our belongings into a giant uPack, packed the rest of our stuff and our cat in our cars, said goodbye to some of the best friends we've ever had, shed a lot of tears, driven over halfway across the country, planned a lot of our wedding, visited with my family, flown to London and turbo-toured it in three days, flown to Joburg and turbo-toured it, experienced the magic of a safari and seeing animals up close, fallen in love with Cape Town, and made friends from all over the world. The past month has had some very difficult moments (packing up and saying goodbye to friends) but also some highlights that I will remember for the rest of my life. We are so incredibly grateful that we are able to take this trip and I couldn't ask for a better travel partner.