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Water/ice Kenya-Tanzania
Is there no place that a traveler can safely have ice in their drink while visiting Kenya-Tanzania. The resorts look so lovely, but their water is not drinkable, so no ice as well?
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Is there no place that a traveler can safely have ice in their drink while visiting Kenya-Tanzania. The resorts look so lovely, but their water is not drinkable, so no ice as well?
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We always used bottled water for drinking and toothbrushing. We had to tag the toothbrushes as a reminder. But, we used ice in our drinks. They assured us that the ice was made with ‘good’ water, and we never had a problem in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, nor South Africa.
I view this differently than Sealord. I love ice with my drinks, but when I go to Africa, India, parts of Asia, etc.I do not use their ice. I only drink bottled water or other drinks canned or bottled. I have seen too many people get sick in these countries that were careful and in my opinion its not worth the risk even if its "good" water. It may be "good" water but due to the difference in minerals or other factors it can still mess with your stomach.
So what about coffee? Should that be avoided?
Caveat, I'm not a doctor or biologist! Generally, if water is heated or especially boiled then it kills the bacteria and it is fine. Most mornings on safari we had a 6am wake up call with coffee and/or tea delivered to your room and it was fine. My only issue with having the caffeine in the morning was that I didn't want to be "the guy" that had to stop the jeep to "check the tires".
https://vinepair.com/booze-news/bacteria-ice-whiskey-can-kill/
Click on the above article if curious. It is possible that we never had a problem with ice, because we always drowned our ice cubes with whiskey. But, that is not actually true. We had ice with other beverages. But according to this article the only beverage that will kill ice bacteria is ‘whiskey’. So if you want to risk the ice in some of the worlds finest hotels and camps, drown your ice in whiskey. The Four Seasons Serengeti serves drinks with ice. (;-)
It is safe to drink the drinks with ice, drink coffee and any food the hotels prepare for you. It is not in the interests of th3 hotel to have all their customers with. D and V or Tauck would not use them. But do not drink water from the taps or brush you teeth with it. We have taken five trips to Africa and never restricted what we eat there. Tanzania is interesting—- you will notice some of the locals have discolored teeth which is caused by a particular chemical I believe in the Arusha area, forget the chemical. We always put a colored hair tie or some like that around the cold tap to remind us not to drink the water.
We were on the Kenya & Tanzania Classic safari. We decided to err on the side of caution. We didn't use ice, eat salads, or fruit we didn't peel. None of the 6 of us were sick, but many others in our group who weren't as cautious did get sick. Several of them were very sick. We decided it wasn't worth the risk.
We will be going on the K and T plus Rwanda in December. We will still be guided by what our tour director will tell us, I am sure it will be that everything provided by the hotel is safe. Extra hand washing is of course prudent too.
I absolutely second what British says! You need to become a “ born again hand washer” when visiting some of the more exotic ( in Tauck’s words) countries! Use hot soapy water ( if available), and carry hand wipes and sanitizer! And, keep your hands away from your mouth! Frankly, rather than worrying about gastric issues, we seem to be more susceptible to respiratory issues from indiscriminate coughing from our fellow travelers! Hence, Airborne now goes in the preventative meds bag!
Joyce is also so right about catching coughs/colds from others on the tour. It’s happened to us maybe on four tours. We generally catch very few colds. On one, the subsequent chest infection Mr B caught that was going round the group, led eventually to a life threatening infection and hospital, a six month recovery ordeal. Yes, wash your hands, don’t worry so much about the food.
I agree with British. Between us I think we have seven or eight trips to Africa. We ate everything, and drank everything with ice except the tap water. We caught a couple bugs but I’m pretty sure they came from our fellow travelers. As someone else said, the food or beverages don’t need to be ‘bad’ to cause a problem, just different. We enjoyed all that was offered. Our biggest problem of that sort was actually on a Tauck river boat on the Danube and more than half the ship got sick. No African ice cubes involved. Strangely, my wife got sick, and I did not. Our traveling companion’s wife got sick, but he did not. And women are the stronger of the species. (;-)
(How do you “quote” on this new venue?)
I usually carry a 2-3 oz container of Purell.
Sealord, will be on our sixth trip to Africa in December and also figuring out when to do number seven.