Berg

DISPATCHES

Hear Wally's Call from Africa

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Hi Mountain Zone, it's Wally Berg. I'm calling you from inside the Ngorongoro Crater. I'm standing here with Godson and Abu, the guides. The rest of the group is all loaded up in their Land Rovers. Jeannine and Kathryn and Eric, their guide, are taking off to Olduvai Gorge and onto Serengeti this afternoon. We're parting ways with those ladies today, the rest of us will go back up to the top of the crater, have some lunch and begin our drive back to Arusha.

These guides that told me for some time that the best time to do a game drive in Ngorongoro is early morning. I've usually done afternoon game drives here, but we all got up at 6am, actually we got up at 5am, and by about 6:15am we were driving down into the crater. We had a fantastic game drive; it really paid off coming down here early. Right as we got down into the crater, I saw a female lion and a very small cub — Godson how old was that cub? Only a month or two old, according to Godson.

Later we saw three male lions very close to the vehicles and then, as the morning went on, we got a radio call from Eric that they had seen a pride of lions take down a Cape buffalo. We quickly went, after we got that radio call, over to that area and watched the kill. The kill is always, you think about the spectacular gory stuff, but actually it transpires rather slowly — it's a fascinating thing to watch. This big, powerful beast, this buffalo, was finished, but the lioness still gave it a great deal of respect because of it's dangerous horns [Unintelligible] and the power of that animal. So, we watched life in the crater as it goes on up here for some time today.

Jeff Vittal and I were just talking, just before we started back up the hill, and we were talking about how good it would be to get back in the lodge and warm up a bit today — that is one of the misconceptions most Americans have about East Africa. This time of year it can be quite cool. We've got clouds out here today — I think that is one reason the wildlife was so active — a little bit of wind and quite cool, pretty chilly out here today. Jeff is, in particular, sending greetings back to his first grade class from Greenwood Elementary at Cherry Creek in Denver. I think they'll probably...his next year's class is going to hear a lot of stories about this part of the world and the adventure he's had on this trip.

Well, I'm going to call this the last dispatch from the Climb for the Cure/Alpine Ascents Kili 2000 first trip of the year. Sally and I are looking forward, along with Godson and Abu, and Eric, the other bush buck guides, and the entire crew, Tobias and the crew that works with us on the mountain, to several more climbs this summer. You'll be hearing about those from us, but the adventures and the accomplishment on this climb has gotten us all feeling great at this point — tired. I know there are some folks anxious to get on those planes and head on home to their loved ones and family.

But we're going to savor their final two days in Africa, a great ride back to Arusha today, and then Sally and I are looking forward to meeting Willi Prittie and Ellie who will be guiding up Alpine Ascents trips later this season with us and, of course, all the climbers coming here to share adventures with us from now through the end of this season in middle of September. So that's it for now, great team this time, great accomplishments, great adventures, and you'll be hearing more from us as the season goes on.

—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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