A Trip into the Antarctica wilderness- V (The Return Trip)

Finally, we were set to leave after a hurried lunch at 3:30 PM amidst shouts of ‘Jai Shri Ram’. It was already dark by now. I was driving the Cauvery with Gaffar. The journey was uneventful till about midnight. After that we had a really tough time. Hemraj Meena’s vehicle that was tugging a 20kl fuel tanker got stuck in the soft snow. Its tracks had dug a pit in the snow. So the tanker had to be unhooked and tugged out by another vehicle. After that was done, I noticed that the temperature of my vehicle had shot up to 120 deg. On opening the bonnet, the fan belt was found to be broken. The team struggled with the repair job in the dark and the biting cold. Finally, after 2 hours of hardship, the job was done. We had already lost 4 hours in these 2 incidents. Later, our vehicle started misbehaving again, but we took a chance to see if it can somehow reach the station. Meena’s vehicle got stuck once again at around 6 in the morning. We were at around the B 10 barrel. Maitri was still 8 hours away from here. So we could reach back only at around 3 in the afternoon. We were fortunate that there were no more breakdowns. I was lucky that there were 2 people in our vehicle. So while I was driving, Gaffar took a snooze, and after the breakdowns, when Gaffar took over the wheels, I could sleep as much as the rotten ‘road’ would permit me. Day break brought some wonderful sceneries, with the approaching mountains forming a beautiful backdrop. I tried to take some videos, but since the temperature outside was -18, a half hour battery back up was discharged in just about 5 min. My ungloved hand was also frozen stiff. Warming up my hand was a painful process. When the sensation started returning, I was relieved that it was not frostbitten.
We slowly meandered our way to Sankalp. We were greatly relieved to reach there. We unhooked the Banjara, Jeevan Jyoti, and the oil tanker and then started for our home, Maitri. This part of the journey was the most painful and the slowest because of the pathetic route. We reached Maitri at 4 PM. It was already dark. We had planned to reach back by 8 AM. So we were late by 8 hours. Maitri never appeared so heavenly as it did that day. We were elated to reach back. We were given a warm welcome. To top it, there was a party that day on the occasion of BRO day. So it was a fantastic end to a very difficult day. It took us 3 days to overcome the tiredness of that day. It was an extremely memorable experience that I will cherish all my life. This convoy has made my trip to Antarctica worth it. As they call it- paisa vasool.