Chapter 55, Part 3, of Paul Hodge’s September, 2012 video book “How to Go Around the World in 47 Days” chronicles Paul’s May 15th, 2012 awesome adventure to Robben Island which is in Table Bay about 4.5 miles off of Cape Town, South Africa. For many years during the apartheid era, the island was used by the South African government as a prison for political prisoners and, sometimes, common criminals/felons. Nelson Mandela spent eighteen years in prison on the island, and the current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma was imprisoned there for ten years. See Video Book Trailer: www.youtube.com and Paul’s South Africa Commentary: genpolicy.com To gain access to Robben Island, you have to sign up for a tour which takes about three plus hours. Starting at 11:00 am, you take a forty minute ferry ride from Nelson Mandela Gateway in the Cape Town waterfront to Robben Island harbor. After the ferry, you take a one hour plus guided bus tour which usually includes three stops: the isolation facility where antiapartheid leader Robert Sobukwe was imprisoned & the prison guard dogs were billeted, the lime stone quarry where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners labored in the hot sun and the end of the island which has a view of Cape Town and the African mainland. The bus guided tour is the focus of this video. After the bus tour, you then have a guided tour of the infamous maximum security prison where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were incarcerated and …
