15 juni 2010

Hello Everyone,
In the last few days there was'nt much chance to communicate with the outside world, I've been in Mulu and from there on a walking/climbing trip to THE PINNACLES. The trip started easy enough with a boatride with 2 stops along the way, one at Wind Cave (not as windy as I'd hoped) and one at Clearwater Cave which has an underground river flowing through it. Then we walked 9 KM to camp five an spent the night there.By this time my clothes were soaking wet with my sweat and hanging them out to dry during the night didn't do much good, so around 2 am I decided to dry them over one of the cooking fires. This resulted in dry but rather burned underwear, my T-shirt survived almost intact. Camp five has cooking facilities and a big supply of drinking water, there are also cookies and chocolate bars and canned drinks for sale which was great because otherwise I wouldn't have had enough food with me.
The next morning I had my CUP O NOODLES for breakfast and around 6:30 AM we started our climb up the mountain. Around one hour later Anna gave up which was a shame. Anyway, we got to the point of no return far ahead of time. The last 300 meters altitude you gain are steeper, but actually easier because of all the ladders and ropes that have been installed. When we got to the pass it started raining slightly and so we quickly took some pictures of the impressive Pinnacles and had lunch after which we started the long climb back down. This was much slower going than climbing up and every step of the way I was scared of slipping and falling on one of those extremely sharp Limestone rocks. The rain stopped for a little while but when it started again it started for real and didn't stop 'till we got back to camp. I was carying my umbrella in one hand and holding onto whatever support I could find. After droping off the small backpack I went for a cool shower (after coming out of the pouring rain) but that didn't take away the sweaty smell, nothing did and having to put thesame wet clothes ack on dod't help much either. This morning I reeked so badly I thought I'd never get rid of the smell but now, two showers later and a bar of soap gone I think I'm alright again.
Tomorrow I'll go and visit the Deer cave and hopefully see the swarms of Bats as they leave. I saw that already in Guatemala but I'ts one of the main attractions around. I must say, I saw more wildlife in the sesspool behind the Scubajunkie Backpackers in Semporna than in the 3 national parks in Sarawak combined. I saw butterflies here and some swarms of bats from a great distance and then there's the house lizard of the cafe who isn't that scared of guests, but that's it, along the river you occasionaly see one of those small birds that look like swallows but make batlike noises but the otherbirds, I'm sure thei're there, you never see.