Start it up.. The daily dance between fire and ice to get the trucks moving.

"Its perfectly safe". They reassured me as i got closer. The biting cold nights in the high mountains turned the diesel in the fuel tanks from its liquid state into a gooey gel like substance which does not flow well and in turn clog the fuel filters in the truck. So heating the fuel tanks like this was the quickest way for the trucks to get going again in the morning. Despite their repeated reassurances it did not look safe to me at all.

I wondered how the diesel cars and jeep fared in such temperatures. They must face the same gelling issue as well (Diesel gels at a temperature of around -10C) but i never saw any of their fuel tanks set on fire. Guess maybe it is better insulated or their drivers just simply wait around for the sun to warm their jeeps well enough to get the diesel flowing once again.

I remembered one incident at the Tsomoriri lake where we tried in vain for over an hour to start a jeep without much luck and finally ended up pushing the jeep down a slope where it rolled downhill for about 2km before finally starting.

Its amazing how the simple things we take for granted down here in the plains become such a chore up in the mountains. All this just increases my respect for the mountains and even more so for the people who live there in such difficult conditions.