South Africa

Started the day with a swim in the indoor heated pool then met up with friends and went on a 45 minute boat ride to Robben Island, where alot of political prisoners were held for years. This included Nelson Mandela who was held here for 15 years in a room alone with three blankets, no glass in the windows and only shorts and tee-shirt to wear. We had a guided tour around the prison by an ex-serving prisoner called Sparks who served 7 of his 15 year sentence before they were all released. He had to live with the same conditions as Mandela, because he was black, but in a large room that was shared amongst 60 inmates as they were not political leaders. They had three showers and two toilets to share amongst them but only had water for three days a week. Punishment was given for not folding the three blankets correctly that they had as a bed, or if they didn't wash in time. They spent most of the time locked up, then working in the mine. Sundays they were locked up for 23 hours and given 30 minutes to play rugby and 30 minutes to pray. We then had abus tour of the island where we got to 'find penguins' again as we saw some both resting and swimming. Later we had a late lunch and a look around the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, a very attractive tourist part of the city.En savoir plus