Balwearie Global

After pulling ourselves out of our cosy beds, we hopped upon our buses to the waterfront. We walked around until we reached the Robben Island museum, dedicated to South Africa's previous leader, Nelson Mandela and grabbed a few bottles of water to keep our Scottish bodies hydrated in the African heat. The boat journey had mixed opinions throughout the group. It was a bit like marmite - some loved it, some hated it. 

We were greeted off the boat with funny looks from the locals as many of us girls sang a bit of Hairspray the musical, not a common song choice in Africa.. Anyhow, we carried on following the crowd to the tour bus where we were showed around the surprisingly quite big island in which they also now lived. To our shock many people were now residents on this island and totalled in around 400 locals living and working on the place of majority of Mandela's imprisonment.

During our visit to the island, we were shown around the high security prison by an ex-prisoner. He told us what life was like in the prison and shared personal stories of his awful experience. He explained that he was meant to be locked up in Robben island for 17 years but was released in 1991, 12 years early as the prison was finally shut down. It was an experience we will never forget as we were able to see and stand in the very place that Nelson Mandela was kept. After this we got the chance to have our 'walk to freedom' out of the prison and with this we were able to take the freedom in walking out and returning home unlike the 38 prisoners who never returned, we walked out of the prison for them.

By Robyn and Jod