AFRICA HIGH AND WILD
Breath of Mist, Jaws of Fire
by Beyond Productions

A forest of leaping ochred legs, sweat streaming, voices calling, drums beating; we are in the very heart of Africa now. In Kenya's remote Loita Hills - sacred home to the Laibon (spiritual leaders of the Maasai clan) tribal elder, Menya Le Kenya is celebrating his final rite of passage. An ox has just been slaughtered and warriors are drinking the blood straight from its glistening carcass.

Wilby and Ciantar join Menya Le Kenya's celebration, then leave with him and brother Illumpala to trek down to the shores of Lake Natron towards Tanzania's awesome "Avenue of the Volcanoes" - an unspoiled landscape lying between the Rift Valley and Serengeti Plains. Walking between dust devils, parting a red sea of flamingos, chasing giraffe, wildebeest and zebra, they finally reach the manyatta (mud and twig homestead) of a distant relative at the foot of Ol Doniyo Le Engai - "The Mountain of God".

The ground is rumbling, the sulfuric smell of escaping gases burns their nostrils. A recent eruption and subsequent lava flow necessitates the use of ropes. Camped inside the crater, on the thin soda crust covering a layer of boiling mud just centimetres below, they spend the night with their Maasai friends, learning more about their culture, beliefs and of course, their sacred mountain. From the arid, hellish depths of a volcano to the wet, luxuriance of the fabled "Mountains of the Moon"; this is where Speilberg should have filmed Jurassic Park'.

Wilby and Ciantar, together with a team of Bakonzo porters, cut their way through an untameable wilderness of over sized groundsels and lobelia, trudge through knee, often thigh- deep mud. Higher still, with mist swirling, streaming, dissolving and forming anew overhead, they enter a realm of giant glaciers and sweeping snowfields. Legend has it this hallowed province of Kitasamba - a powerful deity of the Bakonzo and Baamba peoples - is frequented by a half man - half ape like creature: merely uttering its name is taboo, for doing so will bring one out of hiding.