After the end of apartheid, the prison was turned into a world heritage site and is now basically a museum, obviously no prisoners are held there any longer. I really don't know if its on purpose or not, but the prison grounds are not well kept up and the whole island felt quite deserted. The tour was conducted by a former inmate who told us about his time on Robben Island and his time in detention, he didn't give us much detail but revealed that he was brutally tortured while in detention. It was definitely interesting to hear his story, but it was clear that he's probably told it a million times. The highlights of the tour were seeing Mandela's cell, seeing where he hid his manuscript (later published as The Long Walk to Freedom), walking in the limestone quarry (where prisoners performed daily hard labor), and, frankly, the ferry ride there and back which provided beautiful views of Cape Town.
