Is the Safe in your hotel room ... Safe?

Take a look at this YouTube video.



Shocked? Did you know that there was a default unlock combination for your hotel Safe? I never thought about it till I watched this video! But I guess it makes sense that there should be one ... what if you forgot the code you used to lock it?

I'll tell you why this happens. It's because some hotel managers are just too lazy! The default combination for these safes can be changed by the hotel management. But of course in a hotel with hundreds of rooms, there are hundreds of Safes and it would be quite a lot of work to reset the default unlock code for each one. So hotel management takes the easy way out - they just leave the default code at the original factory setting! What the hotel management SHOULD do, is to develop a protocol for the combination for the Safes in the rooms. The default should not be left at the factory setting because it means anyone can get into your safe. You never know who to trust. Separate codes should be set for the Safe in every room! And only the hotel manager should have access to the list of default unlock codes by room.

So how do you protect yourself? I would suggest the following steps:

How safe is Cape Verde for visitors, tourists and retirees?

Let's face it. Anyone who travels to a strange new place, where ever it happens to be, has a natural tendency to feel some degree of discomfort when it comes to their personal safety. After all, you hardly know much about unfamiliar new places except for what you may have heard before getting there.

Cape Verde is a very safe country for visitors and tourists. Despite anything you may have heard to the contrary, the facts indicate that you are pretty safe here compared to other places. Let's take a look at some of the indicators and studies.

According to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance 2010, an independent evaluator of African nations, Cape Verde ranks #3 of 53 African countries in terms of Safety and Rule of Law. And within that category of evaluation, it ranked 3rd in measures of Personal Safety including crime statistics. Only Mauritius and the Seychelles were safer.

In 2007, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime conducted a study on crime and corruption in Cape Verde. While the data is clearly a few years old, it does put the issue in perspective. What they found was that, "Most of the crimes experienced by the population are conventional property crimes, not necessarily involving the use of violence." Furthermore, they found that, "On average, citizens of the urban areas of S. Vicente and Santiago run the same risk of becoming a victim of robbery as the citizens of other African cities."

Sao Vicente's emerging crime problem and how to deal with it

Cape Verde is one of the safest places in Africa when it comes to crime, and is generally considered extremely safe for tourists. In fact, Cape Verde is ranked 3rd in measures of Personal Safety behind only Mauritius and the Seychelles by the Ibrahim Index 2010.

However, there is a disconcerting truth that the country's biggest cities, Praia (Santiago) and Mindelo (Sao Vicente) have higher rates of crime against the person, especially theft, and increasingly, violent theft.

One unfortunate recent victim was Nathaniel "Jay" Silva who was recently robbed and beaten while walking alone at nigth in Mindelo, Sao Vicente. His injuries left "Jay" disabled and confined to a wheelchair. The bandits made off with 3 euro.