Cup Noodle Joy (Mount Kinabalu Part V)

“Waras Hut is unheated, is that okay” asked the travel agent back in Kota Kinabalu as I was making the reservations. Hmmm, up a mountain, cool air, even with a slight breeze it would even be enjoyable I thought to myself. And in any case, I would bring my trusty multi purpose malong to keep me warm. “No problem, book it”.

Jose gave us the keys, we opened the doors and entered the room, quick to close the door behind us to keep the heat in. We shouldn’t have bothered, it was as cold inside as it was outside. We stripped off our wet clothes to get warm, got into the bunk beds covered ourselves with the blanket. It still wasn’t enough. In the end we put on our change of clothes, the ones we would use for the next day an in our full gear got into bunk beds, this time a little bit warmer. We cooked our food which consisted of dried meat and the ever present cup noodles (those were the most delicious cup noodle I ever had) and got a little heat and joy back into our cold bodies.

The hut itself has two separate bed rooms with two bunk beds in each, a cooking area and a separate toilet. Luxury compared to the climbs I did back home which always had a separate toilet too but you had to make it with a shovel.

It’s strange how a little food got our spirits up. Before we knew it we were setting up our camera gear and taking pictures of the beautiful views Waras Hut provided.

Even the weather was now cooperating, probably because it knew we could now hide in our hut if it continued to rain, and now the clouds thinned out and provided us with some of the nicer views of what we had just climbed. By this time we could actually talked about our climb, the struggle and what we saw and heard, we even joked about the possibility of the climb being cancelled due to the excessive rain, like the previous days climb was cancelled. Jokes were half meant but I think I was seriously hoping that the park rangers would cancel the ascent to the peak and laying in bed later that evening I was trying not to think about it. Thanks to the snores of Suiee, my room mate, I couldn’t lose these thoughts in sleep and ended up panicking knowing I needed to get some rest in before the assault on the peak the next day unless the climb was cancelled . . . . . .