Click photos to enlarge.

Hold your mouse over  photos for additional captions.

Meru, one of the highest active volcanoes outside Latin America, used to be even taller—its summit was blown away by massive explosions in the distant past. Meru is now crowned by sheer cliffs overlooking the crater created when the volcano lost its top. Inside the crater is a great cone of volcanic ash, built up over the millennia by repeated eruptions, most recently in 1910.

The volcanic ash cone is visible amongst the clouds behind the cliff over my right shoulder in the above picture. The three shacks at saddle hut are specs in the lower left. Saddle hut is nestled in a saddle shaped depression between Meru's two peaks: Mt. Meru and Little Meru. 

Vegetation thinned to alpine desert around us as we hiked up Little Meru.

From this perspective on Little Meru's peak (3801 metres elevation), it looks like we are on top of the world...

...from this angle, however, the cloud washed crest of Mt. Meru looms over us.

We watched the sun rise over Kilimanjaro from Rhino Point 
(at 3950 metres, about as high as we both got).

With Fausin and Spice in the glow of the surreal sunrise.

Coming back down with Innocent.

Innocent hands out certificates the following day.

Zanzibar without tourists...