However, Meru is worth doing as much for the differences as for the similarities that it shares with its neighbour. In particular, there’s the greater abundance of wildlife. Lying at the heart of Arusha National Park, a reserve that’s teeming with animals, it’s an odd trekker who doesn’t come away from the trek with his or her camera filled with pictures of buffalo, giraffe, elephant, bushbuck, dik dik, suni, colobus, blue monkey and warthog. Luckier ones may also see leopard and hyaena, while twitchers will be more than content with the number of birds on offer, from the noisy Hartlaub’s turaco to the silver-cheeked hornbill and black-and-white bulbul.

If all this sounds like your idea of a perfect holiday – a safari-and-trek all rolled into one – then you’re probably right, though there is one point that needs to be emphasized: do not underestimate Meru. Though it may be more than a thousand metres lower than Kili, it’s still well above the altitude necessary to bring about altitude sickness and with almost everybody taking just over two days before reaching the summit, the risks are great.

Indeed, though we’ve climbed Kilimanjaro on a number of occasions, without a shadow of a doubt our most nerve-racking ascent was on Meru. True, this had much to do with the fact that there had been heavy rain on the evening before the night-time walk to the summit, a downpour which quickly froze and caused the entire trail, from Saddle to summit, to become covered with a layer of ice. Inconvenient on the first part of that night-time walk, on the second half it became positively dangerous, causing us to scribble hurriedly a last will and testament in our notebooks. Indeed, it was only thanks to the hard work of the guides, who dug out footsteps in the ice with a piece of rock or the back of their heels – footsteps in which, taking our lead from King Wenceslas, we then trod – that we gained the summit at all. And it was only by inching our way back down, bottom pressed into the ice, limbs looking for any piece of rock or other non-slippery material to put our weight upon, that we made it back down to write this guide. So though Meru may not carry the cachet, prestige or the sheer scale of Kili, it’s no pushover. Meru remains an awfully big mountain, and as such it should be treated with the utmost respect.

Practicalities

The route
There is only one main route up Meru. The route begins at Momela Gate, around 15km from the main Ngongongare entrance gate where you pay your park fees. Having paid up and driven those 15km, past the plain known as Little Serengeti (Serengeti Ndogo) because of its similarity to Tanzania’s most famous park, you arrive at Momela where you pick up your ranger and hire your porters.

The route from Momela Gate (altitude 1500m) to the summit is punctuated by two sets of accommodation huts: the first are the Miriakamba Huts (2514m), a day’s walk from Momela Gate; and the second are the Saddle Huts (3570m), lying a day’s walk from there. From the Saddle Huts it’s a further day’s walk – or rather, a night’s walk – to the summit.