Robben Island

It's easy to ignore South Africa's racist history in a city as lovely as Cape Town.  Not so when you tour Robben Island where the apartheid government sent political agitators to spend their days mining limestone for no purpose instead of fomenting civil unrest to change the world.  It takes about half an hour to get there from the V & A Waterfront.  Bring your dramamine.

A very knowledgeable guide explains the prison's history as you traverse it by bus.  On the morning we went, nearly all of the hundreds of visitors were white.

The prisoners had great views of Table Mountain.

Here's where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years.  He didn't have that pad for all of them.

For blacks like Mandela (C below), food rations were smaller than for mixed race prisoners (B below) but far be it from me, a white American, to comment on South Africa's racial history, past or present.

The ride back to the waterfront took far longer because of the headwinds though the water was considerably smoother.

We dined at Blowfish, an excellent seafood restaurant.  It was the only time during our two plus weeks in Africa we were served by a white waiter.

Kite surfers just outside the restaurant's windows took full advantage of the spring winds.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Kirstenbosch, Cape Town's botanical gardens.

As lovely as Kirstenbosch is, it couldn't quite erase the image of Nelson Mandela's garden.

Man's inhumanity to man really knows no borders, does it?