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There is a place in South Africa where you can find perfect white beaches, predictable (and not at all dangerous) surf and a decent towel service. That place is not along any of our many thousands of kilometres of shoreline. It is in the landlocked, Africanised fairy tale complex of debauchery and sin called Sun City. It is the Valley of the Waves, and if you are willing to discard authenticism then it is quite possibly the happiest place in South Africa.

The water is real. Everything else is... enhanced reality.

Sun City itself is a slowly decaying holdover from the Apartheid-era ban on gambling. It was built in the middle of nowhere because that is where the former (gambling-friendly) homeland that housed it was, and South Africans streamed hence because there were so very few other legal places to show their mathematical ineptitude by taking part in rigged games of chance. Now that you can gamble just about anywhere, fewer are willing to make the 1.5-odd hour drive from Johannesburg or Pretoria, so things aren’t quite what they used to be. The glitz is wearing awful thin in places.

The Valley of the Waves was a relatively late addition to this complex (which before then consisted almost entirely of hotels, golf courses and dimly lit rooms where women danced on stage without first covering their breasts). We’re betting that it will also be the last part of the complex to crumble for lack of cashflow, because during the summer months it can still attract a capacity crowd over a long weekend or on a public holiday.

It’s a partially-themed water park, okay? This is Africa; we don’t have that many theme parks or water parks, so we get inordinately excited by that kind of thing. Don’t be so judgemental. This is the closest thing we have to Disneyland: everything is fake or glitzy or both, and carefully engineered to not strain or stress. The wave pool produces child-friendly swells, the death-defying water slides come nowhere close to killing you and the ice cream is always cold. Also, there will be people who are fatter than you are, and neither them nor the good-looking ones will notice your imperfect body (unlike some other places we could name).

That is exactly the kind of escape your average jaded Johannesburger longs for on occasion. And after a couple of weeks of cultural immersion, dusty safaris and weird foods, it’s the kind of place where tourists love to decompress before going back home, or venturing further into the continent. Especially if they have kids. Kids are crazy about the place, as are their parents once they realise that the Valley is a safe environment where they can let the little monsters run wild while mommy and daddy get mildly buzzed on drinks with little umbrellas in them.

You can tell that it's Africa because of all the wild animals.

If you have the money to spring for the 5-star Palace of the Lost City hotel you get access to a heated outdoor pool. If you hang with the plebs instead, then you have to swim in naturally-heated water, but given that this part of the country is about a finger-width away from officially being a desert, that isn’t a real problem. The weather is invariably glorious all through spring and summer, and if you go there outside of local school holidays and weekends you’ll have the entire place to yourself. Except for the odd (and typically quite entertaining) Japanese or German tour group.

If you get bored from all the predictability and lack of danger, there are always exorbitantly-priced game drives at the Pilanesberg Nature Reserve right next door, or even more exorbitantly priced balloon safaris. You can get better (and cheaper) of both elsewhere, however. If you go to Sun City, go purely for the Valley of the Waves. Lie under a beach umbrella all day while polite servers bring you cool drinks. If anyone asks, don’t admit that you went because the real Africa got you down. Just say you were trying to recreate the experience of being a white colonialist of the previous century.

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.

Camps Bay beach as seen from Table Mountain. Take that, island paradise tourist destinations.

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.

The Clifton 4th beach in Cape Town. Notice any ugly people? That's because there aren't any. Photo by Warren Rohner with some rights reserved.

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.