On the Robben Island

Nelson Mandela spent a greater part of his 27 years in this cell on the Robben island. For many like me, visiting it is a pilgrimage.

Nelson Mandela, who, last week, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the day the South African apartheid regime decided to bring him out of incarceration (he did it with a dinner with his family and his ex-jailer!) is a miracle. South Africa is work in progress, for sure, but the distance it so rapidly put between itself and its immediate past is a miracle too. And the two miracles are completely intertwined.

Another View from the Cape Point

What is it about oceans that inspires awe? Is it the vastness that instantly brings home our own tiny place in the scheme of things? Is it the unseen retreat of our egos as it cowers in face of evidence of a Higher - indeed a Bigger - intelligence at work?

Deserts inspire too, as due vast blue skies and open spaces. And huge mountains. So the scale has something to do with it, huh?

At Cape Point - Looking Down at the Atlantic Meeting the Indian Ocean

I peered hard and long to spot the 'line' where the Atlantic washes into the Indian Ocean. I did not spot one, of course. I also wondered if the waters of the two were different. And they are!

As we drove down to beaches a few kilometers on either side of cape Point, we found the water of the Indian Ocean distinctly warmer (there being a perfectly geographical explanation) and cleaner. Maybe that was just our patriotism working up. Or maybe the beach was actually neater and cleaner for other reasons.