Sir,
I have just come back again from holidays in Cyprus (which we visit once a year since 1996) and this year I’ll be quite direct. Water is really becoming a national problem, but I wonder who has still got a brain on the island.
Bob Marley was singing “No woman, no cry”, I hope that one day you will not be singing “No water, no life”.
There’s no water, but there are many beautiful golf courses who (unless they’re made of synthetic grass) need huge amounts. What for? For a handful of British who enjoy playing with little white balls under the sun. It’s total nonsense to have golf courses in Cyprus.
We’ve stayed in “Aphrodite Hills Resort” where there is a golf course but even without this, the resort is a great consumer of water, with gardens, and very large swimming pools.
But why does there need to be a golf course?
There’s no water in Cyprus, but houses are still being built everywhere on the island (around Protaras-Grecian Park, for example) but for whom? The Brits won’t come anymore soon, as they don’t have any more money to spend.
And of course every single house will have a pool. And every pool will be filled with the rare water.
But one day, theses houses will be left without anyone inside because no water means no people to live there. Here again, I ask: where are the brains of those who give building permits without no limits?
They say there’s no water but just two days after the Dhekelia desalination plant went offline: it was 1pm, the sun was shining, the temperature was around 35°C and at the big roundabout in Ayia Napa, the grass was being watered!
Even a novice gardener knows that it’s nonsense to water at the hottest time during the day but here it seems that this advice has been lost.
On the highway, at the same time, we’ve seen people, with tanker trucks watering the flowers! Are all the people on this island completely crazy?
To finish, I must ask what happened to Nissi Beach?
We visited Konnos bay on a Sunday only to find it full, so we left for Ayia Napa – Nissi Beach. When we arrived there, we immediately understood why everyone in the know was at Konnos bay.
Nissi beach used to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean, with pure blue crystal water but this year, we found disgusting, green, stinking water!
We will never again go to Ayia Napa, where it was so nice to be during September’s festival. Now it has been invaded by excessive drinkers, violence and even a shooting when we were here last.
What is the municipality doing? Very little. Nobody seems to care what’s happening and that’s the saddest thing we’ve noticed.
Jean Jacques Bedrossian,
Mougins, France
