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South Africa used to be a decent, God-fearing kind of place. Shops closed on Sundays, there was no swearing on the airwaves and scarlet women hid their shameful acts behind closed doors. We like to believe that this was a situation engineered by the most regular clients of these night walkers – clergymen and politicians – as a form of demand-side management to keep price inflation in check.

Things have changed a lot since those days. The toppling of Apartheid and its puritanical mores brought a flood of pornography, titty bars and other awesome stuff. And yet the whores stayed in hiding.

In other words, all things are allowed except the exchange of money for sex. South Africa has a famous chain strip club, Teazers, which operates openly and is known to serve decent food. Smaller competitors at both end of the spectrum supply all your booty-ogling needs at various other levels of safety and hygiene. Retailers like the famous Hustler shops and a franchise called Adultworld will supply pretty much everything else related to man’s insatiable hunger for woman: XX-rated magazines, inflatables, insertables, whips, chains, masks, DVDs, and other equipment unfit to mention on a family(ish) website.

But the low-class prostitutes still let it hang out on street corners, the mid-class hookers ply their trade in hotel rooms and the high-class courtesans are guarded behind high, anonymous gates. There are no red light districts and no licensed brothels, no safety mechanisms other than pimps, no legal protection for either party and no contract in the eyes of the law.

Now, for a strictly theoretical user of the services of a sex worker (which is our preferred politically-correct term in South Africa), there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One, prostitution is illegal in South Africa. Two, our police have bigger fish to fry and nowhere near the resources to run American-style sting operations with decoy hookers stationed as lures. Three, HIV/Aids is rampant in this country – be safe or acquire an incurable disease. Four, vice and crime (the real kind, the violent kind, not the victimless kind) go together like a horse and carriage and horny tourists are especially soft marks.

Like any non-Muslim country that isn’t in Asia, finding a prostitute is by one of three primary means: online, dead-tree classified sections and hotel concierge. After that you are on your own. Don’t get caught with your pants down.

Howzzzt isn’t updated on any kind of regular schedule, which makes things tough for our regular readers (of which there is currently approximately one. Hi mom!).

But now, thanks to groundbreaking technology the likes of which the world has never seen before, you can get your Howzzzt fix via Twitter. Simply go here for the web feed, or add us to your Twitter feed by searching for the username “Howzzzt”.

Actually, we tell a lie. There is nothing groundbreaking about either the technology or the Twitter feed. It just automagically updates with the title of the latest post and a handily shortened link the second we publish anything new. We also throw in some news relating to the site or South Africa, at present an average of less than two tweets a month and likely to stay there. So we won’t be flooding your Tweetbox, promise.

Cape Town is an awesome place, it really is. Table Mountain (with a choice between a long queue for the cable car or a tiring slog on foot to get to the top). Robben Island (once home to Nelson Mandela, now a boring tour you have to do because everyone back home will ask about it). Pretty beaches (only marginally contaminated with sewage). Fantastic summer weather (because all the rain is saved up for winter, when it never stops). The picturesque winelands of Stellenbosch and Franshoek just a short drive away (where snobby wine experts are standard equipment). Decent nightlife (if you’re down with repetitive techno music). Awesome views (if you can shoulder your way through the crowds of fellow tourists). Nice people (mostly, just avoid the handful of crazy homeless people). Good shopping (if usually a little pricey and snobbish).

And a surfeit of beautiful people.

In fact, Cape Town has by far the largest density of beautiful people you’ll find anywhere in South Africa – and it isn’t all that far behind places like Monaco. We can’t tell you which is the chicken and which the egg, but the city is jam-packed with modelling agencies. To these agencies stream every long-legged, statuesque, chisel-cheeked female under 25 born anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. And it’s not just the women either. Cape Town has a high population of gay men and – again, we don’t know whether this is cause or effect – there is a large population of pretty boys also.

This all makes for a rather nice afternoon out, just sitting at a pavement cafe watching the pretties parade past in their designer sunglasses and tight tops. It stops being pleasant approximately eight seconds after you disrobe on the beach and realise all the locals are starring at your flab. Yes, you are indeed the only person in sight with a body-fat percentage measurable without advanced laboratory equipment. Yes, everyone else is indeed sporting gravity-defying breasts over a washboard stomach. You may go to the gym three times a week and be pretty proud of your progress, but in this company you are a freak of nature.

The problem, as a friend of ours once remarked, is that nobody in Cape Town has eaten anything with a discernible fat content since 1983. Capetonians aren’t healthy, they’re obsessive. They exercise and diet continuously. They have all the nips and tucks and implants and spray-on tans that money can buy. We highly suspect (but can not prove) that there is a thriving black market in steroids. Basically, there is no possible way that you, a visitor, can compete. Except if you hail from the French Riviera yourself, or if you happen to be some kind of improbably low-maintenance supermodel.

It only gets worse if you try to hide your shame by rushing into the water. The average sea temperature in the Cape Town region is around 16 degrees Celsius (61 Fahrenheit if you are metrically challenged), and on the Atlantic Ocean side it’s a lot colder than that. An unprepared man will suffer genital shrinkage that may well be permanent, an unprepared woman will shriek like a banshee, and unsightly gooseflesh is guaranteed for all sexes.

If you go to Cape Town, invest in baggy but hip clothing. Go for a nice stroll on the beach by all means, but remove nothing more than your shoes – and that only if you have well-groomed feet. Think carefully before exposing any skin that isn’t on your hands or face. Alternatively, invest in some hypnosis to shore up your self confidence and prepare to ignore the pointing and whispering and giggling. It’s not that all the pretty Capetonians are mean, it’s just that they’ve never seen anybody without perfect muscle definition.

Listen up, especially if you are a Dutch tourist: cycling in South Africa will get you killed. Please do not arrive here with romantic notions of pedalling around the metropolitan areas and exploring the cities by your own motive power. Do not hire a motorbike or scooter to get around. Our emergency medical facilities are stretched thin as it is and we don’t want your corpse adding to the load.

What you certainly can do is take a guided bicycle tour of Soweto, or potter about the Natal midlands on a tandem bike. The winelands outside Cape Town are perhaps best viewed from the back of a rented Harley Davidson. Or, if you time your visit right, something like the massive Cycle Tour in Cape Town or the Cycle Challenge in Joburg is great fun (and perfectly safe thanks to all the roads being closed for the events). In other words, rural is fine, organised groups are great and big events are perfect. But alone, in the cities, you are just so much roadkill waiting to happen.

It’s not that South Africans are particularly evil or anything. Our cities just aren’t built with bicyclists in mind, for a variety of reasons. There are no bike lanes anywhere (the few experimental ones are so rare that motorists often don’t understand what they are), there are no bike racks anywhere (except rusted relics at a few schools) and South African drivers have no experience in dealing with bicyclers. Also, us city-bound Safrican drivers tend to be in a hell of a hurry, and aggressive to boot. This is not a combination you are likely to survive.

If you do head out to experience the rural tranquil on the back of a bicycle – and especially if you are Dutch – remember that most of South Africa isn’t flat. In this case, “not flat” should be read as “holy shit, did you see the size of that mountain?” We have mountain passes that have speed limits, on the uphill side, simply to keep your head from exploding due to explosive decompression. Check a contour map before planning your route, or suffer the aching-muscle consequences.

Naturally, the mountains make for some amazing mountain biking. If that is your thing then check out some of the adventure routes on offer, and events like the Cape Epic.