Berg

Hear Wally's Call from Africa

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We pulled in here today at the end of another excellent safari. They're all different: this one was marked by cats. We saw a lot of cats both in Ngorongoro yesterday, and pulled into Manyara today and saw two really nice male lions sitting up. I burned about two or three rolls of film on these guys. But it's just, you know, safari's different for every group. The interesting thing about this group is they'd already seen so many lions that they were peering out the other side of the Land Rovers looking at a giraffe, which was the first one we'd spotted. Excellent end to what, as you know, was a great climb.

After we left Manyara today, we did what we sometimes do and stopped at a Masai village; the men were off with the cattle, as they often are. And I haven't mentioned Justin, our Irish lad, since I talked about his place in line early in the climb. I shared a great summit with Justin. He told me as we struggled on up there, back in Kili, it was the big day of his life; he really had a great climb. Since we've come down though, we've continued to give Justin the grief that he asks for sometimes. And in particular, today, we were anticipating, even though Justin keeps calling Miriam back in Ireland, we were anticipating that he would perhaps take a Masai princess and change his life and just sort of remain here in Africa. That didn't happen. It turned out it was Guy Mount that kind of felt most at home in this Masai village. And I've got a lot of photographs of Guy throwing the children around and playing games with them, and he was not real happy about leaving. He thought the Masai village was a pretty...[Unintelligible].

We continue on Tarangire, of course, and had a great game drive...[Unintelligible]...elephants, a leopard, finally—beautiful evenings, beautiful sunset, as I said. Going to conclude my dispatches from Africa for this season, I am going to be blissful about leaving, but I'm going to know I'm going to be back. A really successful season for all the Alpine Ascents climbs that came here. Big adventures which is what it's all about. And I'm looking ahead to Antarctica, the Amery Glacier, coming up in November. Mountain Zone is going to be a part of that and you'll hear more about that very soon, as well as upcoming Alpine Ascents climbs.

But for now, it's just time now to savoring all the last days and hours in Africa at the end of a great season.

—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent