CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: ROBBEN ISLAND

If you haven't figured it out yet, I am a BIG fan of Nelson Mandela. Making a pilgrimage to Robben Island, the place where he was held behind bars for 18 of the 27 years he was imprisoned, was a Must-Do for me. 

Of this island where he lived in a maximum security prison from 1964 to 1982 Nelson Mandela wrote, "Robben Island was without question the harshest, most iron-fisted outpost in the South African penal system."

We arrived at the ferry station at the Cape Town waterfront just in time to snap one quick photo with  my hero:

. . . before we got on the boat that slipped away from the dock and the pleasure boats and the Ferris wheel and took us four miles out into Table Bay:

. . .to a small oval island (less than two acres total) that is flat and barely above sea level:

For over 350 years, this desolate, wind-swept dot on the sea was used to isolate political prisoners and to lock up criminals. It has also been used as a leper colony, an animal quarantine site, a World War II defense site, a mental asylum, a Muslim pilgrimage site, and now, a major tourist destination.