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| Sunset Beach, Milnerton, Cape Town |
We run a guest house and we have noticed some visitors are nervous of South Africa. Traveling can present challenges. Fears usually relate to quality of food and water, crime, insects such as mosquitoes, roads, Hepatitis A or B, parasites and HIV AIDS.
In rural areas where there is stagnant water and poor living conditions there can be some risk of diseases such as cholera, bilharzia, typhoid and rabies. But in Cape Town it is very unlikely.
Since my blog is focused on Cape Town I am not going to even talk about that sort of travel.
Firstly tap water in Cape Town is perfectly safe to drink. Mentioned this topic before in another post see here – tap water. Malaria does not occur in Cape Town. Spoke about this in more depth here – malaria.
Here are the safety precautions I would suggest.
- Don’t swim in the sea without a lifeguard present. The current and backwash off the Cape Coast can be strong. And we have sharks in False Bay.
- Do not have unprotected sex with a stranger. HIV AIDS rates are high in this part of the world and Hepatitis is also sexually transmitted.
- Do wear full factor sunscreen, a hat and body covering clothing if you are out in the sun.
- Do not flash valuables and be careless with your handbag, cellphone, laptop or camera.
- Don’t go wandering to known unsafe areas or darkly lit places alone at night.
- Keep an eye open for wild animals on road trips. Baboons for example can get violent. Read here – Chacma baboon.
- Mini bus taxis are a law unto themselves. Just let them go and know you are a better person for it.
- Don’t go up the mountains alone or unprepared. The weather can change in minutes and the heavy cloud makes it impossible to find your way home. There have been muggings on the mountains.
- Avoid street kids and beggars. They will try and engage you. Just ignore them and walk on. If you want to make a difference rather make a donation to a place of safety or rehabilitation centre. Those sad looking kids are accomplished pick pockets.
Luckily we aren’t likely to have natural disasters. We hardly ever get lightening and thunder storms in the Cape. No fault lines here, so we don’t fear earthquakes. We don’t have volcanoes and we don’t get tsunamis. It seldom snows here, so no avalanches or blizzards either. It can get windy and it can get hot. Mountain fires can get fierce at times. In winter it rains a lot. But we’re pretty lucky here when it comes down to it. For more travel and safety tips follow this link – Travel and safety tips.
