metaclass depth > call depth

How far deep can a metaclass tree go?
type(A) = B, type(B) = C, type(C) = D...?
Can it go further than the function call depth?

def tower(n=100, sofar=type):

   class next(sofar):

      __metaclass__ = sofar

   return tower(n-1, next)

>>> tower(997)

<class '__main__.sofar'>

>>> tower(998)

#...

  File "<stdin>", line 3, in tower

RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object