Robben Island

I started reading Nelson Mandela’s book “A Long Walk to Freedom” on the plane to SA. It is an autobiography that covers Mr. Mandela’s journey through the struggle for racial equality. It is over 600 pages…quite the commitment on holiday… and I just finished it. Ever since I cracked it open I’ve been thirsty for information on SA’s rich history, so I was very excited to go to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent two decades of his 28 year prison term.


Of course we were running late and almost missed the ferry. It was a serious race to the port and everyone kept telling us to go to the clock tower and we couldn’t find one. Joe came very close to turning into the right lane (wrong lane) on a six lane road, which would have been bad, but we course corrected just in time. Once we got on the ferry we both let out a big sigh of relief and enjoyed the beautiful views and informative safety video.

Table Mountain from the Ferry

Looking at an empty prison is not all that special. But since I had read Mr. Mandela’s book I could envision him and his comrades in places he mentioned in the book like the courtyard and the garden he tended. His cell was remarkably small…no bigger than 6x6 and at one point he spent 22 hours a day in there. I don’t know how a person stays sane in that situation.

Nelson Mandela's Cell

Our tour guide told us about the prejudices that occurred even in prison. The food was distributed based on skin color with blacks getting the least. The black prisoners were given short pants like school boys while the other prisoners wore long pants. There were many other unmentionable disgraces that were attempts to break the political prisoners minds and spirits and to divide the racial unity they had created against a common enemy, the Nationalist government.

Food Ration

We saw the lime quarry where Mr. Mandela and the other political prisoners worked. They developed an education curriculum that was taught in small groups working in this quarry. They would dig and teach and talk. Many prisoners went into prison with a 5th grade education and came out with multiple degrees.

Our Tour Guide

Our guide was a political prisoner on Robben Island in the 80s and shared his story with us. As a student at 17 he was part of the Soweto protests against forced learning in Afrikaans instead of English or indigenous languages. The students were also fuelled by anger regarding the inferior education for black Africans that limited their opportunities. The protest was meant to be peaceful, but turned into a massacre with 23 deaths and an undetermined number of injuries. This made our guide believe that violence would not stop under the current Nationalist government. He joined Umkhonto we Sizwe, which translates to the “spear of the nation” and was the African National Congress’ military arm. Nelson Mandela was the first leader of this military organization and was leading it when he went to prison. Our guide was picked up across the border by SA police, was detained for six months, then had a trial and was sentenced to 10 years at Robben Island but served about 12 years.


It was special to hear firsthand what it was like to be on Robben Island and to be a political activist during that tumultuous time.