Overlooking the nearby town of Arusha, Mount Meru stands proudly at 4 562m. However, very few visitors scale this volcano… which is a pity, because it has many things going for it.
Firstly, being some 1 300m lower in height than Kili, the risk of climbers experiencing the dreaded effects of altitude sickness is less. The lower altitude also means that less time is required to climb Meru – and to top it off, visitors do not have to have such deep pockets to summit Meru since fees are substantially lower. Additionally, visitors are much more likely to spot wild life on Meru’s lower slopes than on Kili. In short, Meru is an exciting must-see destination in Tanzania! Although Kili and Meru are both volcanoes, the two brothers are strikingly different in appearance. Despite its huge size, Kili is actually rather boring! Basically, it’s just a flat-topped plateau and that’s about it! Nothing out of the ordinary.
In contrast, its smaller brother is more eye-catching and conforms more closely to the stereotype of a volcano – a steep sided, conical-shaped peak that looks as if it were being sucked high into the atmosphere. As such, geologists classify Mount Meru as a stratovolcano.
Meru owes its name to a mythical mountain, described in ancient Hindu/Buddhist scriptures in which it was thought to be a sacred place in the centre of the universe. So, basically, Meru is a volcanic Eden!
Several years ago, I arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s major port and former capital, after more than two days riding the rails on the run-down
