After a lovely evening at the Table Mountain, we enjoyed some fine African cuisine that night at The Africa Café. It is located quite close to the Holiday Inn Strand.
To be even more specific, the Africa Café is situated in a beautifully restored 18th Century Cape Georgian Home at No 108 Shortmarket Street, Capetown. Eating at this Café gives you an altogether different-from-ordinary experience as the food is a fusion of meals from across Africa. We were seated on the ground floor which had around 5 large eating rooms to seat about 80 guests.
The serving is known as a “Communal Feast.” It is indeed a feast of dishes from all over Africa and it highlights a new part of Africa every two or three months. Chef Portia serves a variety of cuisine that varies from finger foods hawked at a road side in Malawi to a steaming plate served under a Thatched Khaya.
All African meals are shared by all the people on the table and there are no starters or main courses. Interestingly, you can eat as much as you want and that is true for tea, coffee and desserts as well. The Africa Café is a family affair and that evening we were treated to a really sumptuous meal comprising of lamb stew, spicy rice patties stuffed with shrimps, Xhosa pot bread, a dip of aubergine dhania and garlic, white curd cheese dip with fresh herbs, sweet potatoes and cheese balls rolled in sesame seeds, Moroccan cous cous salad with chickpea, Malawi chicken and Egyptian koshery followed by African desserts AND tea AND coffee! After a very “African” meal we returned back to our hotel room. The day we had started in Johannesburg had now ended in Capetown.
The following morning which was day nine of our FUNDI trip, we had a change of schedule. As we had already visited the Table Mountain, we left the Holiday Inn Strand after breakfast to visit the V&A waterfront from where we would take a boat to Robben Island – the Alcatraz of South Africa.
Robben Island is around 12 kilometres from Capetown and has been a place of banishment, exile and imprisonment for almost 400 years. It was here that the then rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society.
During the apartheid years, Robben Island became internationally known for its brutality. The duty of those who ran the Island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their convictions. Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison ‘hell’ into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island came to symbolize, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.
It was home for many years to eminent South Africans – the most famous of them all undoubtedly being Nelson Mandela – the Former President of the post apartheid period. The cream of the country’s political leadership spent time here plotting how they could win freedom and independence for their people.
Today tourists can visit the island, see the cells in which these people spent much of their life and listen to first-hand accounts of life at what has been called one of the world’s great universities of political struggle and strategy. It became a World Heritage Site in December 1999.
On arrival at the V&A waterfront, we felt it wasn’t surprising at all that it was one of South Africa’s most visited destinations. With the sea in front and the Table Mountain as the backdrop, the V&A waterfront is one of the most happening places in Capetown, be it day or night. You have entertainment and shopping galore with some of the finest world class restaurants, an I Max theatre, two “ocean aquariums” , a maritime museum and the Nelson Mandela Gateway which takes you to the Robben Island. The Nelson Mandela Gateway is a departure point for Robben Island tours and was opened late in 2001. We were lucky to witness original lithographs of Nelson Mandela which were on display at the gateway just before the point of boarding the boat to Robben Island.
We had booked tickets for the two hour Robben Island cruise. Besides viewing the famous prison island, we also viewed the penguin colony, apart from the breathtaking views of the Peninsula. On your way you can encounter seals, dolphins and even whales: we managed to see quite a few seals around the island.
Once on the Island, you will be able to see some of the 23 species of mammals, including small herds of bontebok, springbok, steenbok, European fallow deer and eland. Ostriches, lizards, geckoes, snakes and tortoises can also be found.
The Island is actually the summit of an ancient, now submerged mountain, linked by an undersea saddle to the Blouberg. Its lower strata consists of Malmesbury shale forming a rocky and somewhat inhospitable coastline. Above this lies a thick limestone and calcrete deposit covered by windblown sands and shell fragments. The Island is low-lying with the highest point at Minto’s Hill (named after a nineteenth-century Surgeon-Superintendent of the General Infirmary) 24 metres above sea-level. Initially this island housed a hospital for lepers and the mentally ill and then the prison came up. Tours to the island include a visit to the prison, the limestone quarry, the Leper’s Church and the “Kramat” – a Muslim shrine.
In the 1840s, Robben Island was chosen as a location for a hospital because it was both secure (isolating dangerous cases) and healthy (providing a good environment for cure). During this time, political and common-law prisoners were still kept on the Island. As there was no cure and little effective treatment available for leprosy, mental illness and other chronic illnesses in the 1800s, Robben Island was a kind of prison for the hospital patients too. Since 1997 everything has been converted to a museum. The museum is a dynamic institution, which acts as a focal point of South African heritage. It runs educational programmes for schools, youths and adults, facilitates tourism development, conducts ongoing research related to the Island and fulfils an archiving function.
The guided tour was lead by an individual who had spent a major part of his life in the prison. Hence, the narration was full of emotions and depicted the atrocities that some of the freedom fighters had to face during the apartheid days. Nelson Mandela spent as many as 27 years in prison and his prison cell is the highlight of the trip. Did he spend so many years of his life in such a small chamber?
Mandela was a central figure in the organised political education classes at Robben Island as it gradually turned into a mini-center for education during his stay.
In prison, Mandela never compromised his political principles and was always a source of strength for the other prisoners. As you take a tour around the island, you’ll spot a road to the village and you’ll also pass a square-towered church and old Sailboat cannons. Most of the buildings today, date back to the Second World War with 9.2 inch guns and bunkers bearing testimony to the armaments erected to defend Cape Town. The main centre of Robben Island is located in a small village and everything from milk to building materials has to be ferried over from Cape Town Harbour. Robben Island generate it’s own electricity and obtains its water from nine boreholes.
It was a very eventful morning indeed. Thereafter, we headed back to the mainland and while were in our ferry, we gazed at some of the most spectacular views of the city of Cape Town. With some of the elite hotel properties dominating the coast of the V&A waterfront including the Table Bay and the Cape Grace Hotels, and the spectacular backdrop of the Table Mountain which dominated the entire city of Capetown, it was picturesque.
We halted for lunch at ‘De Goewerneur” which is the home of traditional cuisine in South Africa. It is located at the Castle of Good Hope. We tried typical South African cuisine comprising of Cape Malay Bobotie, Tarragon Chicken and Mushroom Pie and topped it with the traditional Malva Pudding. We also witnessed the changing of the guards and took a quick tour of the Castle as well. The castle of Good Hope is the oldest colonial building in South Africa and was built by the Dutch East India Company way back in 1679. The Castle of Good Hope was the regional headquarters of the South African Army in the Western Cape and houses the famous William Fehr Collection of historic artworks, the Castle Military Museum and ceremonial facilities for traditional Cape Regiments. This castle was walking distance from our Hotel at the Strand.
Later in the afternoon we visited Signal Hill. Signal hill separates the suburbs of Green Point from the City Bowl and one can access this extension of Lion’s Head Mountain from the city via Kloof nek Road. All along the route you get a stunning view of the city, the Table Bay and the Table Mountain. At the top there is a wonderful picnic spot and it is a popular place to see the sun set over the Atlantic. The main attraction of Signal Hill is the battery with the Noon Gun positioned just below the mountain top. Here a cannon shot is fired every day at 12 noon to uphold an old Capetonian tradition and it’s a good way to check whether your watch is accurate enough.
Late in the day we had ample time to visit Canal Walk – one of Africa’s most exciting shopping and leisure destinations.
What did we see at Canal Walk and how our visit to the southern most tip of the African continent? You’ll have to read my next travel diary entry here for that!
Here are the other interesting travel diary entries. Or call us to discuss your SA trip.
