Robben Island, Cape Town

Back in Cape Town before I fly out to Johannesburg tomorrow, spend a couple days there and then fly home on Tuesday. Edge left two days ago, just in time to miss the incredible weather here. All of the sudden I get Cape Town...significantly more to do when it's not actively raining.

Yesterday I took a trip out to Robben Island, which is an Alcatraz type island where they kept political prisoners during apartheid including Nelson Mandela. I've been reading a little about the last 50 years in Africa, across the continent just prior to the end of Colonialism to current and the bottom line is that this is one messed up continent...for many reasons. But one thing is clear, if it wasn't for Nelson Mandela South Africa would have followed a closer course to the rest of the continent and there would have been full scale civil war. One guy. Pretty amazing. The visit to his small cell and walking by his garden, where he hid pages of the book he was working on "A long walk to freedom." And the limestone quarry where they decided to help educate their guards instead of resenting them and where Mandela lost much of his sight on the bright stones. All our tour guides were former prisoners. The prison was immaculate...I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that it was the cleanest and best maintained building that I've been in since getting to Africa...I think to the point that it may have lost some historical interest (total conjecture...I don't know what it was like before). Very Africa that they keep the only building that is sure not to house people in it is completely immaculate while shanty housing in the townships still goes without power, water, and sewage.

Today was an incredible view from Table Mountain. I walked up from town, not a short walk, and after I took a little short cut I realized that about 50 kids and 4 adults thought that I looked enough like a guy that knew where he was going and decided to follow me. I did not know where I was going. Without pointing any fingers, the bottom line is that we all ended up scaling 100 meters of solid brush in a snake infested (At the top, where sane people would see it, there's a Cobra Warning! sign) area to get back to the road. Those kids really should have know better. I think they all made it, I made it up second behind a kid that totally cut me off in the last 10 feet.