Day 27
North Peloponnese
22 years ago I was living in a small village in the North Peloponnese, between Patras and Corinth.
22 years later, Korinthos has doubled or more, the wine yards that produced the famous dark grapes are gone, many of the olive tree fields also, petrochemical plants occupy the city from all sides, the famous canal is fenced from all sides.
I visited the people I knew 22 years ago. They explained that there isn't enough water for the wine yards and the olives. This penury led the death of wine yards, and that has greatly reduced the production of olives, whose price has increased locally on par with the prices found in the supermarkets in France and Germany. I checked.
What they didn't tell me is that petrochemical plants, like data centres, like chip manufacturing plants consume an awful lot of water.
There's a logic to that state of affair: one can't have jobs and local food at the same time. This logic was somewhat upheld by a recent news article I red on the BBC website promoted hydroponics, GMOs, and synthetic food as a way to use less water and manpower to feed the planet. As it happens, promoting new businesses seems to be the new editorial line of the BBC. Plouf. Plouf.
We spent the night in a shaded street, with ample street parking available, between the sea and a pine planted area providing shade in the afternoon. Despite the North-Westerly the night was hot. On the morning the sea was roaring and rushing peebles in our legs. No swim, but a quick shower. While I was drying myself the sky darkened and it started to spit. We packed quickly and crossed the bridge to the mainland, in order to have breakfast in a sunny place.