A close up view of Lupita Island. The Island itself is shaped like an upside down pudding rising out of the lake. It is covered in trees and has plenty of lovely big rocks everywhere which will be incorporated into the designs of the various rooms and other structures.

The water here is crystal clear with a visability of over 35m. Lake Tanganyika has more species of siclids than any other body of water in the world, and these brightly coloured fish love to feed off the rocks around Lupita. The island is a snorkeller's paradise!

Lupita Island from the east side. This is the side that is closest to the mainland and is where we currently dock our boats.

This really is a unique Island. There are no wild animals (apart from 1 male baboon who we have nicknamed, Bartholomew, and our resident otters), and no mosquitos (so there is no threat of malaria).

At night when the rest of the workers return to Kipili, the only noise on the Island is the lapping of the waves on the shoreline and the occasional owl or nightjar.

There is no pollution here so during the rainy season, when the dust has settled, we can quite clearly see the valleys and mountains of the DRC on the other side of the lake. If you look to the right hand side of this picture you will see the DRC.

The skies are beautiful and clear at night making the stars seem so close that we almost feel as though we can touch them. And on the nights when the moon is full I sometimes wake up thinking that we have left one of the lights on. Yes, Lupita Island really is very, very special and we try to make the most of every day that we are here.

The Seventh Day of Christmas

Today we are reminded of the gorgeous sunrises that we get from the east side of Lupita. The pictures speak for theselves. Three times a week Chris and I run up and down the hill with the dogs as exercise. This is our view. How could we not get up early for this?

 

 

The Eighth day of Christmas

Of course the eigth day of Christmas belongs to the glorious sunsets that we are treated to on Lupita. Some evenings the sky is a wash of orange, dusty pink and brilliant blue.

On other nights the lake turns to lilac and the clouds are burnt purple, pink and brilliant gold.

The sunsets really are a celebration of the day that has passed and a promise of another that is yet to come!

 

 

A lovely view of the sun setting behind Fisherman's Island as we return to Lupita one evening.

The Nineth day of Christmas

Today is for the Lyemba. This ship is an old German vessel, dating back to the 1920's. This is the ship that the movie "The African Queen" was based on. During the war, the Germans actually sank her to prevent the ship from falling into the enemy's hands.

Today the Lyemba chugs up and down Lake Tanganyika from Kigoma in the north to Kasanga on the Zambian border. It carries cargo, vehicles and people and provides our weekly supply of delicious pineapples from Kigoma. The Lyemba docks in the Kipili bay on a Thursday on her way south and again on a Saturday, when she makes her journey back north again.  

 

The Tenth Day of Christmas

This is for our vegetable garden. Because the selection of fruit and vegetables available in Kipili is so limited, we have planted our own vegetable garden on the Island. Every morning the askaris water and weed our garden for us and the results have been remarkable! We are now able to pick fresh spinach, tomatoes, the largest cucubers and zucchinis that I have ever seen, bazil, green peppers, radishes and carrots. Sadly the lettuces, broccoli and cauliflower have not grown well, but we plan to try to plant these again in the New Year, together with a more extensive herb garden. It is such fun to be able to cook food straight from our own garden.

 

Our cucumbers are HUGE, averaging about 40cm in length and up to 9cm in diameter. I have no idea what is in this fertile soil, but our zucchinis and cucumbers LOVE it.

 

The Eleveth Day of Christmas

The eleventh day of Christmas is for our chickens. After spending a few weeks in Kipili, we soon realised that if we wanted to eat chicken or eggs we would need to have our own chickens. With this in mind we bought as any chickens as we could from the villagers and built a small chicken coop. Before too long we had a few eggs and now we are able to keep about 10 eggs every week for hatching and still have enough for us to have eggs every breakfast.

The chicken coop has been divided into two sides, one side houses the adult chickens with a seperate area for the laying chickens, and the other side is home to the new chicks and their mums. The young chickens only join the adults when they are a bit older and not as vulnerable. 

 

Clawfuss looks after our chickens. He takes great pride in his work and really loves them. He has taught us all about what they like to eat, how to tell if a chicken is sick and most importantly, that chickens will only lay eggs if they are happy. 

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Today is for my soul mate. If it were not for his free spirit and love of adventure and fresh challenges, we would not be here. Life with him has been extaordinary to say the very least!

We met in a bar (believe it or not), and I knew that night that he was the man that I would marry. It was a whirlwind romance and we were engaged six weeks later and married only six months after that.

We had only been married for 9 months when we decided to sell our house and our cars in South Africa, packed all our furniture into storage and ourselves into an old 109 landrover and headed north. The idea was to drive through Africa to the UK. After travelling for 4 and a half months, we arrived in Tanzania and have never left. We both really love this country with its warm, friendly people and wild, untouched countryside.

We have had all sorts of interesting businesses since we arrived here almost 8 years ago, from restaurants to a fitness club, from a cleaning company and a metal workshop to building bridges in the Serengeti and lodges near Lake Manyara and in the north of the Serengeti. Every one has been unique and special in its own way, but Lupita Island is the cherry on the top.

The Fishermen of Lake Tanganyika

On most evenings the Fishermen go out into the channel between the Island and the Congo to catch fish. Just before sunset we see strings of rowing boats tied together being towed out into the lake by boats with engines. The Fishermen use kerosene lanterns to attract the fish to their hand lines. These lanterns look like Christmas fairy lights and give the lake a truly magical feeling at night. One evening we counted over 90 lights in the channel. It was quite mystical!

 

Earthquake!

On Monday 5 December, an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale, hit Lake Tanganyika. The epicenter of the earthquake was somewhere in the center of the lake, between Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

As Lupita is situated 3.8km from the Tanzanian mainland and roughly 60km from the DRC, we were quite surprised that we were not more seriously affected. I was in the office when the earthquake hit. With us being on the Great Rift, we often feel earthquake tremors on the island, but this was certainly the largest one that I have felt. My chair was shaking and even our filing cabinet was moving backwards and forwards. At one stage I actually got onto the floor to feel the full effect of the tremor.

Thank you to everyone who has been emailing us concerned about our well-being. We are all safe and completely unharmed. Luckily for us, the earthquake has had no affect on any of the buildings or structures that have been erected thus far (of course now Chris wants to advertise his building techniques as being EARTHQUAKE PROOF). We did however hear that one of the villages on the banks of the lake on the Congolese side was badly affected and several people died. What a year we are having! First Hurricane Katrina and now this massive earthquake. Hopefully 2006 will be less exciting in this regard.