Berg

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I'm standing on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater just marveling at what a grand and wonderful place it is. I've got the wind in my face; there's a typical morning fog here, quite cool at a significant elevation here in east Tanzania. I'm looking down through parts of the breaking fog and I can see the bottom of the crater floor: it's a wonderful, majestic, really marvelous place.

Yesterday, we drove out from Arusha, put in a few hours in the Land Rover. They're comfortable vehicles on these roads, but you wouldn't want to do it with anything other than with a vehicle with suspension like that. And with Felix our very skilled driver who was able to get us out here within a minimal amount of time—we had some lunch and we drove down into the crater yesterday. Had a great initial wildlife tour on our safari here. Did see three, actually we saw four, rhinos which is pretty remarkable and really an amazing experience. These are black rhinos, weigh as much as 3,000 pounds. Not many of them around anymore, I doubt that we'll see anymore of those as we're out here on safari. Saw some lions, although, these were really king of the beast–type lions: they were laying around in the afternoon sun out there in the grass, in the bottom of the crater, catching some shut–eye. They were not particularly impressive because they were all just snoozing. It just sort of seemed like—we talk about this a lot—it seemed like lion parts out there in the grass. Occasionally, one would roll over and you'd see a giant foot or a leg and then one would stretch and you might even see one lift up its head briefly. Hopefully, we'll see a little more cat activity today as we move onto Lake Manyara and ultimately to my favorite game park in north Tanzania: Tarangire. I'll tell you about that as it comes up.

Just real briefly, Kate and Elizabeth, Jamie and Adam and I are still having a great time. I want to mention one other character that's with us though and this is Felix; he's our safari driver and guide on this trip—really a great guy. He's from the Pare tribe, which is also from the slopes of Kilimanjaro, just as the Chagga's are. And just as the Chagga people have their own language so does Felix; then he learns Swahili; then he learns English. And I'll tell you, this guy has been to school and learned a lot about the natural history of northern Tanzania; and it's really greatly enriched our experience, as we spend all these hours driving around in the Land Rover here, and his insights and his knowledge about every aspect of natural history up here.

So, we're having a great time and we'll check in with you this evening from Tarangire National Park after a lengthy, and I hope really rewarding, couple of game drives en route.

Yeah, one more thing before we do take off this morning to Lake Manyara and onto Tarangire. Mountain Zone I'd like to let you know, we will keep you posted on our research, and our discussions, into this issue, that Elizabeth in particular is interested in, as to which creature is actually uglier: a warthog or a wildebeest. A hyena was presented by Adam, and was presented as a runner or contender in this as well, but I think the hyena sort of dropped from the competition here. We'll let you know today, as we no doubt spot a lot more wildebeest and warthogs, which of these two unlikely creatures, that both seemed to be made up of leftover parts actually, in the fascination of this crew—gets the award as the ugliest creature. So that will be one of our [laughs] goals today and we'll let you know how that goes.

—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent