Robben Island

The sign reads "Lepers Cemetery". I ask the bus guide if I can jump off for a minute and grab a shot. "Oh no Miss, this island was officially declared a World Heritage Site years ago. Nobody is allowed off the bus". And with that is my first introduction to Robben Island. My guide, a former inmate, goes on to explain that UNESCO preserves the structure and grounds exactly as they were when the place closed in 1991. For 400 years, Robben Island served as a place of punishment for exiles and prisoners. Those with mental illness and incurable diseases were also abandoned here. It's best known for the jail cell where Nelson Mandela spent 27 of his 33 years as a political prisoner. The outcropping of granite and sand is only a 30 minute boat ride from Cape Town. Its deserted, empty and hallow ground now. Desmont Tutu spoke about this place crossing the Atlantic so taking this tour was pivotal. Mandela's blankets still sit on his cell floor along with a food dish and cup on the sill. I stray from the group long enough to spend some solitary confinement in one of the courtyards. I drop my camera to the ground and feel the crushed rock and exposed earth. It's easy to capture the loneliness and desperation where grass and trees don't grow - hopelessness literally permeates the air. Walking back to the bus, a large colony of African Penguins bark goodbye to me from the shore. For them and hundreds of bird species this place is still home, for everyone else, an invaluable history lesson in inequality.