Long walk to freedom

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These pictures were taken on Robben Island, home for many years to Nelson Mandela, who is both a living hero to his people and undeniably the most famous political prisoner of all time.

Looking back at Table Mountain, Robben Island is now preserved as a living museum and it exists as a symbol of freedom and of the triumph of human dignity over ignorance and oppression, the twin hallmarks of apartheid. Our guide (bottom pic), himself a political prisoner here for eight years, spoke without malice or a desire for revenge as he described what it was to be black and in the service of apartheid’s white prison guards throughout their mammoth struggle for equality. His was a powerful perspective indeed.

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NOTE TO SELF: Don’t try too hard, however, to explain such things to the kids. (I really thought Molly was listening to my rant about how this place came to be and how awful it was. She politely waited for me to finish but as soon as I did, she inquired (with a totally straight face): “OK Mom, can I have my PushPop now?”

Where oceans collide

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We’ve flown to the other end of the country to the modern, vibrant, funky city of Cape Town, the cradle of white settlement in South Africa and also, so it’s said, the least “African” of all African cities. Unlike Johannesburg, there are white faces everywhere on the streets, and there seems to be no end to the good life in some of the richer beachside suburbs, like this one called Clifton, where Annie and Molly hammed it up (top pic) for the camera before pouring a bit of Atlantic sand into a bottle for safekeeping.

Close as we are to the Cape of Good Hope, it’s hard not to daydream about what it must have looked like hundreds of years ago when the first white folks set foot here, and about the ships that have sunk in these treacherous waters and about the magic and mystery of two great oceans (Indian and Atlantic) colliding.

The other pictures here were taken at sunset from the top of Table Mountain, the most famous landmark in Cape Town. (One day the heat of the lowveld, and the next it’s 5C up here. Gotta love it.)