ROBBEN ISLAND AND LANGA TOWNSHIP FULL DAY TOUR

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: District Six Museum, 25A Buitenkant Street, Cape Town Central 8001 South Africa

When the apartheid government swooped on District Six, Cape Town in 1965, forcibly removing its occupants and declaring the area a "whites-only" zone, the rich fabric of an impoverished but vibrant community was torn to shreds. Over 60 000 people were wrenched from their homes, livelihoods, community centres and societal networks, and relocated to the bleak plains of the Cape Flats, several kilometres away.The Museum is committed to telling the stories of forced removals, and assisting in the reconstitution of the community of District Six and Cape Town by drawing on a heritage of non-racialism, non-sexism, anti-class discrimination and the encouragement of debate".The District Six Museum houses an impressive collection of historical materials including photographs, paintings, artefacts, physical remains like street signs, books and studies as well as audio-visual recordings of District Six, most which were donated by its former residents.


Duration: 40 minutes

Stop At: Langa Post Office, 1945 Jungle Walk, Langa, Cape Town, 7456, South Africa

Visit Langa Township the oldest Township in Cape Town a Community Created To Inspire, Connect, Educate & Empower everyone.An area made up of infamous singles quarters, hostels of migrant workers of the apartheid era, a squatter camp, a vast taxi rank, a community centre, and settlers - the Beverly Hills of Langa - Langa is high on the list of ‘to do’s’ when visiting Cape Town and over twenty five percent of tourists take a township tour in an endeavour to ascertain the extent to which the squalor and deprivation of the previously disadvantaged have improved.

Langa, the sun, was created in 1901 in the wake of the Bubonic Plague where over 500 Africans, identified as a ‘health hazard’, were resettled in Langa, which became the first black township in the Cape. It was to make history in 1960 when over 50 000 people burnt their pass books in defiance of the pass laws, and again in 1976 when students protested against using Afrikaans as a compulsory first Language in all schools.Today the township of Langa may still be divided along the colour line, but it is a vibrant and lively experience. Coloured and Indian people live in Phillipi, Brown’s Farm and Rylands respectively, and whilst there are modern schools, clinics, electricity, running water, sport facilities,the Tsoga Environmental Resource and liveable homes - an improvement on the former hostels

Duration: 4 hours

Pass By: Mzoli's Place, Ny 115, Guguletu, Cape Town, 7751, South Africa

Gugulethu has been described as a combination of vibrant life, poverty, disease and violence and has its roots in the migrant labour system of the apartheid era, when the number of migrant workers from the Transkei became too great for the township of Langa to contain.

Originally called Nyanga West in 1958, people were allocated rooms in hostels designed in zones, where up to three men had to share a tiny room, and poverty and overcrowding were a characteristic, one that has changed very little since the end of apartheid. However, today Gugs is a combination of what remains of the former hostels, tin shacks, which many people built for themselves to create privacy, and brick and mortar houses, owned by the wealthier in Gugulethu. It also has running water and electricity.

There is a lively sense of community, even though people share toilets and facilities, and restaurants and Bed & Breakfasts are indicative of the strong influence of tourism. Gugs was the first to have an information technology centre, which provides top class training in multimedia and youth development. There are also sport fields, community centres and schools but the best way to experience Gugulethu is to go and see for yourself, on an arranged township tour.

Pass By: Khayelitsha Site-C, A, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, 7784, South Africa

Created during apartheid as a dormitory area for migratory workers, today it is the biggest and youngest black township on the Cape Flats.

But Khayelitsha is not the bleak line of shacks it presents along the N2 Highway. Many of the township’s residents live in formal houses - a combination of the 1980s ‘matchbox houses’ and the more recent low-cost RDP homes, and the business district is fast being developed with an open-air high street mall opening for business recently. The film uCarmen eKhayelitsha placed the township on the world map and scooped the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005. The film combined the opera Carmen with the country’s African choral tradition, setting it locally in the township, giving it a totally new slant that stunned audiences throughout the world.

And a recent low-cost housing project in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha gained the township further world recognition at the Montreal climate change conference last year, for its potential to reduce greenhouse gases and earn carbon credits.

Khayelitsha was also the first township on the Cape Flats to set up its own community radio station - Zibonele Community Radio. The station developed as part of a health initiative, and operated illegally, initially for only two hours a day, broadcasting from a shipping crate in Town Two. It has played a role in the Prevention-of-Mother-to-child-transmission and the government Access to Treatment programmes, and today is a self-sustaining legal broadcaster.

Stop At: Robben Island Museum, Cape Town Central 7400 South Africa

During the apartheid years Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality. The duty of those who ran Robben Island and the Robben Island prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison on Robben Island for their beliefs.Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison 'hell-hole' into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island came to symbolise, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.

Duration: 3 hours