Day 25
Luxury Oia
Oia is one of the touristic magnets of Santorini. Oia is full of luxury residences, luxury shops, luxury cruises... Whatever luxury money can buy, Oia will bend backwards to make it happen for you.
Any yet, money can't buy the dominant direction of the winds that makes the sea bring back to the island's North and East shores the empty plastic bottles and tin cans, or in some less seen corners of the buildings.
With the dominant direction of the wind – that money can't buy – also come sand and salt in all the recent buildings, whether they are for tourists or for locals. That seems to have stopped more than one project.
The traveler may decide to stroll along the bling crest line and the narrow streets along the crater side and look upon the unfathomable number of rooms built on the cliff side.
In the morning, on this same side, the observing traveler will see locals carrying on their backs large rubbish bags loaded with the linen used by the tourists that checked out in the morning to catch a ferry, a plane, a powerful motor boat for themselves (helping hand included), or a helicopter.
The traveler may also decide to walk on the other side of the crest and witness the abandoned shops, the abandoned tourist accomodations projects, the logistic of trucks bringing food and beverages to all the places where tourists can feed or drink all day long. Santorini is like a Love Boat that never stops to port thanks to just in time aerial refuelling of drinks – including drinkable water –, food, concrete, and while paint.
To the list of things that money doesn't want to buy: the cleaning of luxury apartment rooftops, the completion of more real estate projects, the abandoned projects, the abandoned businesses, the abandoned terraced gardens that once provided food to the locals...
I fully accept impermanence in all the dimensions I've encountered so far, but I cannot yet embrace every change I see.
There are still examples of local resistance and greed. You decide:
For rent or for sale:
No signage:
Work in progress...
All of these pictures could have been taken less than 30 seconds away from one another while walking in a packed Oia on the peak of the season. Unless one is in complete denial, one's eyes will see aggressively expensive super-bling places interspaced with littered corners and rooftops as well as stalled construction sites with rusty rods sticking out of concrete that finished curing some time over the last 40 years.
A local remembers the island 40 years ago: deserted by the youth. He says tourism has brought back the young generations. Example: there's a primary school in almost all the villages. But clearly the island is not a sustainable environment anymore. Is that kind of tourism really good?
Another local asked us where we sleep tonight.
- Hotel? BnB? Beach chairs?
- A small van.
- Where?
- In the small ports, for locals only, where there's no tourist, except those who come and take a selfie of themselves on a quad.
He smiles, he laughs, he offers a big honest hand. He does the same when he travels. He says we both belong to a very small proportion of all the travellers.
One of his colleagues comes. We show pictures of the van. We explain how we travel: leaving less junk when we leave than when we arrived. He recommends his home town to us, for when we will be on our way back.
With Santorini, one can contemplate many different angles to the sentence: "The ultimate tourist destination".
Food for thoughts.