Sunday, July 31, 2011

Arrival in Africa




We are now in Cape Town, South Africa. We are far from home as the sign below indicates.


Went to hike Table Mountain but it was in a cloud and there would have been no view. We rode on a double decker bus for one of those city bus tours and got to see a lot of the city, including a tour of the old synagogue and Jewish museum. Were a bit surprised to find out that the majority of Jewish immigrants were from Lithuania. We walked as well as jogged along the coastal promenade.


We've had a tour of District 6, a racially mixed neighborhood demolished by the apartheid government to make way for a planned white neighborhood that never materialized, and is now mostly barren, a sort of monument to the lives destroyed. This was followed by a tour of a black township on the outskirts of the city.


This afternoon included a tour of Robben Island where the apartheid government kept their political prisoners





Mandela lived in this prison cell for 18 of his 27 years in jail. Our tour was given by a former prisoner who had been incarcerated there for 7 years. Depressing, but at least it was a nice ferry ride.



Location:Cape Town, South Africa

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