It’s a remarkable thing to leave behind the hotels, shops and galleries of the V&A Waterfront and step into the gleaming Nelson Mandela Gateway. The redevelopment of Cape Town’s quayside, a working harbour that still runs alongside what is now the city’s most prized real estate, began in 1988. The idea back then that any part of it would be named after a man who was at that time living in a jail cell in the Tokai suburb of the city was unthinkable.
This gateway is where ferries depart for the former offshore prison of Robben Island. It was there that the late Nelson Mandela and countless political prisoners spent decades of their lives while the South African government continued its policy of racial segregation, known as apartheid. Thirty years after the country became a democracy and Mandela was elected its first president, the island seemed a fitting start for exploring how this history still shapes Cape Town and the experiences of locals and visitors.
Ferries leave here throughout the day, nearly always full. Queues snake beneath the hot sun as people wait their turn to learn more about an island that was used as a penal colony as far back as the 17th century. Over the years, it operated variously as a maximum security prison, a military base and even a leper colony. Today
