Ol'donyo Lengai

I was 16 years old when I stood in front of this wonderful mountain. And I was tired too. My twinbrother and a friend of our family, we three trecked with a guide and some donkeys through the Rift Valley, from the Ngorongoro Crater to the Lake Natron. On the fifth day we arrived at the edge of this continental rift and like a huge monument Ol Doinyo looked down to us. After relaxing one day at Lake Natron, we started at 2:30 from the campsite. The road ends at the feet of the mountain (3:00) and now it was our task to fight the gravity. The path is small and sandy, and nearly the whole time steeper than 45° - but still easy to find and to walk. The last part is very hard, because of some lava channels and ash-fields. After 4 hours and 40 min. We reached the top while the rising sun throws Oldoinyos impressiv shadow on the rift. It's difficult to discribe the caldera, it's maybe 200m in diameter, full of a gray mud. I've saw about five "chimneys", some partly destroyed by the wind (!) some throwing out a black something - yes, lava. The whole place looks like a scenery of a fairy-tail - a strange one, of course. Down we ran like devils and more than one time we crashed on the ground - it was fun! But after arriving back at the camp one guide told us that we were very lucky - there are very dangerous snakes at Oldoinyo - the holy mountain of the Massai.