The view from near the top of the repeater tower was pretty amazing. This is the view off into the flatlands of the jungle. The Andes are behind me. Off in the distance you can see the town of Shell. You can kind of see that it's split in half by a small river. The airport/military base is essentially the right half. You can barely make out the runway in the middle of the right half. The town in the foreground is Mera (hence the name Shell-Mera) and the large river on the right is the Pastaza.
This is the shelter for the repeater equipment. We were very grateful for this humble shelter because within minutes after we finally reached it we encountered a downpour of typical rainforest intensity (and, thankfully, brevity). Bruce and Robert (the avionics techies) got right to work on the repeater, and we waited out the rain and then did small tasks like washing the solar panels and cleaning up around the place (and climbing the repeater tower; don't worry Mom, we tied ourselves to the top of the tower before taking pictures).
The intrepid explorers, ready to embark on yet another adventure. From left: Nate, me, Robert (MAF avionics techy), Bruce (another MAF techy) and Palivio (a friend of the MAF guys who went along). You can see by the smiles on our faces that this was definitely a "before" picture :) Okay, it wasn't all that bad, but it was a pretty difficult trek up the mountain through the mud (note the rubber boots) and the jungle while carrying backpacks with our food, supplies and tools as well as the two ladders you see leaning against me and Robert. It was grand, though not half as grand as dinner and our beds that evening!
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