Last Days in SA

Tonight is our last night in South Africa! Wednesday, we visited Robben Island, which is the prison where Mandela was kept. We took a ferry to get to the island, and I didn't get seasick! The boat ride is typically beautiful because you can see the Cape and the city. However, it was SO foggy on Wednesday aka we could only see white... Essentially, we were in the middle of a cloud. Once we arrived on the island, the first part of our tour was in the bus. Apparently, people can live on the island now, and our tourguide's daughter went to school there. We saw the prisons and the maximum security prison, in which Mandela stayed. Our tourguide had been a prisoner there, and it he had a very intense story. He told us about how he arrived and the ways in which they tortured him... I was almost sick to my stomach, but I was in awe of his strength. He was definitely an inspiration. After this, we were supposed to climb Table Mountain, but the clouds were so intense (aka you couldn't even see the mountain), so we chilled at the waterfront for a few hours. We had lunch and got serenaded by multiple original SA ensembles. After this, we went back to our hostel for an economics class. Then we set out for a wonderful night on the town- dinner and the theatre. We saw a local comedian, and he was hsyterical. However, our group only got some of the jokes because half the punchlines were in Afrikaans. It was stiill a great night though!

Today, we went to a Muslim community called Bo-Kopp. The community had brightly colored houses everywhere- they were so fun! I went into the oldest mosque in South Africa, and it was a cultural experience for all of us. We then ate a local restaurant, at which our tourguide worked, and had absolutely wonderful food. Then, a group of 9 of us got the chance to climb Table Mountain. This was the steepest hike I've ever done (though I can probably count my previous hikes on one hand...)! We couldn't get all the way to the top due to time constraint and serious cloud coverage. However, we climbed for about an hour, completely uphill. It was pretty neat :) We celebrated our last night in South Africa with a group dinner in the Muslim community. We leave for Namibia tomorrow at 10 am :)