Knitmedic

Cape Town is amazing so far - unfortunately not much time to blog right now, we have better things to do :) Yesterday we went to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years..the journey took around 45 minutes by boat, on a stomach-churningly rocky sea, but was really beautiful. We were shown around the prison by a former inmate, who was there for five years for protesting against the apartheid and who suffered the most horrendous torture. That, and the township tour we went on today, really opened my eyes to the reality of apartheid and the impact it had on millions of people here. It's amazing how much you can miss if you're not paying attention - I was hardly even aware of all this stuff even though it was all in disturbingly-recent times.

Tomorrow we will be going up Table Mountain, which is the highest point in this area so should be able to take some amazing photos if the weather's good. I found an incredible bead shop with all the beads under the sun so will bring some over for those who are interested.

Also South Africa is great for muslims! The tourist information centre in Cape Town actually has a prayer room for muslims, all the main fast food outlets are halal including KFC, Macdonald's etc and there are lots of muslims around..which makes us feel quite at home. This is despite having to always be a bit on the ball with locking doors and parking in safe areas and so on which seems to be part of daily life here. We haven't had any problems so far though alhamdulillah.

Let me know if there is anything particular you want, although so far there hasn't been much I've wanted to buy, as most souvenirs seem to be creepy wooden masks or elephant/lion/giraffe associated items.