Robben Island

Another tourist thing to do in Cape Town is to take the ferry out to Robben Island. Robben Island was once where a prison was held for political prisoners. There is also a small village on the island. People still live out there, but the prison is not used. One of their most famous prisoners was Nelson Mandela and current South African president Jacob Zuma.

After we got off the boat this was the entrance to the island.

Here is a photograph of what it looked like with the prisoners coming into the island. They were given very little when they got here. Just shorts and shirt, and they all had to have their heads shaved.

This island was also a place for those with leprosy, starting in 1845, to be quarantined. This is the cemetery of those who died of leprosy.

This was the limestone pit where prisoners came to dig. Many of them years later were diagnosed with diseases because they had inhaled so much limestone dust. It was huge and for them to just have picks and small shovels to dig all of this was crazy!

This pile of rocks was started by Nelson Mandela. One day he just laid a stone in the middle of the pit, and through the years other prisoners also went and put stones there.

They also dug out this cave where they would have some talks about things, you can barely see them but they even build out some benches inside.

The church on the island has been there for a long time.

It is also one that is famous because a lot of people come to it on Valentine's Day to get married. Our tour guide told us this past Feb. 14th there were 12 weddings!!!!

Here is the school K-12 on the island.

At the edge looking out over the bay.

The island has had much destruction and I found what seems to be a chimney on the beach.

The lighthouse.

A rotting whale, and let me tell you that smell will never go away for me. P.U.!

This is a gun that was build during WWII. They wanted to protect Cape Town if anything happened down there, well turns out they didn't use it. Mostly because they didn't finish building it until AFTER the war was over. :) Our tour guide said it was in proper African timeframe...which is true.

More on the prisoners of Robben Island next.

Table Mountain

One of the tourist spots for Cape Town, besides the city itself is Table Mountain, and you pretty much can't miss it once you get into Cape Town. Why is it called Table Mountain?? Well, look for yourself.

It looks like a table.

We drove up there, not to the very top but about half way up to be able to ride to the top. You can also hike up to the top but it looked steep and rough and I didn't want to carry 50 lb. Spencer halfway up, nor have Tyler do that.

Once we drove up to the place to get tickets to ride the gondola, this is the view we saw. All of Cape Town.

This was looking up from the get on point for the gondolas. It was a looonnnggg way up, but the ride itself took only 5 minutes.

A bit of a closer look.

When we got on the floor started to spin, so everyone could see all views. It was pretty cool. This was the hiking trail to go up, we saw two people on that trail and they looked tired.

A look back over Cape Town while going up the gondola.

More to the right.

See that first stripe in front of the rocks, that is the road that we parked on, and the building is on the left by the wires. A long way down!

We were even up above the clouds. It was soo pretty, and a little hard to breathe.

Remember what I was saying about perspective? Here is Spencer's head for some.

A little critter that was up on the rocks, we actually saw a lot of them.

Spencer didn't want to get near the edge, so he posed on the rocks.

Beautiful flower up on the mountain. I need to write down the names of all of these things when I take the picture, but I always forget. It was pretty big too.

Spencer and I looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. Is that my parents house I see WAAAYYY over on the other side?? :) just kidding!!! It would be a FAR ways off, since if we did see anything it would be South America, but you can't see it.

Here is what the top of Table Mountain looks like.

Cape Town from the very top of Table Mountain, you could see everything. If you look on the left side of the picture, on the right of that small hill, you see a circle. Got it? That is a stadium that was used for the World Cup.

I saw this guy sitting over there by his lonesome, so I took a picture. Not exactly how I wanted it to turn out, but it makes you see what a small piece of the earth we are.

Here is Lions Head mountain. Looks more like a lion's head when you are down in the city.

Cape of Good Hope

After going to the top of Cape Point, we decided to drive over to Cape of Good Hope. It was just as beautiful.

I loved watching the waves crash into the rocks.

The Cape of Good Hope.

More splashes!

You can tell how windy it was with this wave.

This was on our drive back home. This beach was gorgeous!

When we got back to the hotel we saw these people walking back and forth with these bright umbrellas. Looking around more and we found out that they were filming something!!

The actors just kept walking back and forth across the crosswalk. Also the water truck kept watering down the sidewalk and road behind them, since it was a pretty sunny day. :) It was pretty cool to watch, and a little boring too. ;) Another cool thing, those big thick white lines on the crosswalk...not really there. They put them down just for this filming!

Cape Point

The day after we arrived in Cape Town, we decided to take a road trip down to Cape Point. It's ONE of the most southern parts of Africa. I'm pretty positive I could see Antarctica....just kidding!!! :) But Cape Point is where the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean meet. It was GORGEOUS there! Here are some of our pictures from that day.

Driving down to Cape Point.

Once we were in the Park area we had an ostrich out in the middle of the road!!! There were a lot of ostriches around.

At the bottom of Cape Point. Beautiful, huh?

See that lighthouse up there?? Yeah, me neither, but it's there and that's where we were headed! You could either walk up there, or right a gondola type thing.

We chose the gondola. :)

Up at the lighthouse.

They had a post right in the middle of the area in front of the lighthouse and New York was on there! So we HAD to take a picture. New York is our next post, can you believe it's 12,541 KM away?!?!

Also, you can't tell in this picture but it was SOOOO WINDY up there. I had to lean forward to try to get the pictures I took so I wouldn't be blown back. Spencer was actually really scared to do this because he was afraid his flip-flops would be swept away or that he would!

At the top looking down. You see that road coming along the hill, that first part where it gets big is where we were parked. umm...yeah it was a long way up!

A little private beach near Cape Point.

The meeting place of the two oceans.

Sorry the guys head is in the way, but sometimes you need some perspective about how big and far away things are, he was my perspective. And the white caps out there...no idea what they were?? Perhaps the meeting spot?

What a beautiful world we live in.

Once we had fun up at the lighthouse looking around and were tired of being pushed by the wind we went down to the gift shop and we found this beauty!

I had to take a picture for my father-in-law Todd, he loves these boat models. Wish we could have gotten it for you Todd, but there was no way we were going to get that thing back to the States all in one piece!!