One-year anniversary of kissing the old life goodbye
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under notes
I still don't know the name of that fruit
It’s been a year to the day since I officially started My Backpacking Life and hopped an international flight from Chicago. I’ve been on five different continents since then, produced a small amount of reporting, bummed about working when I could, volunteered as a teacher in rural India and a conservationist in rural Ecuador and smiled too much for my own good.
I encountered the limits of freelance journalism and discovered that I don’t have the hustle necessary to pay the bills that way. I also learned that I want to play a more active role in helping the planet and its huddled poor. I’m ready to take off the neutral observer hat and put the gloves of a fighter (even if it means going graduate school).
I became what amounts to a dual citizen of both the U.S. and India. I’m moving back to Delhi for another extended (indefinite?) stay in a few weeks.
I learned to dive, fell in love with the sport and became obsessed with the oceans. I can’t now foresee a future where I’m not diving regularly. I learned how much I love sea turtles.
I’ve taken more than 16,000 photos.
I lost more than 52 kilograms (about 115 pounds). I had become incredibly overweight and was eating and drinking myself to death. Now, I’m vegetarian and rarely go near alcohol. I jog and am seriously contemplating running a half-marathon yet this year.
That’s not to say I don’t miss people and places and things from my old life. I have many fond memories and no real regrets.
But in the photo above, I am tired, sweaty, muddy, smelly and sucking on the remainder of a strange jungle fruit in the Ecuadoran Amazon. I’m also immensely happy with that new me.
Tags: ecuador, india, photography, shenanigans, tourism, volunteering
Plantas de la selva: Vol. 3
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Succulent
Tags: arutam, ecuador, en la selva, environment, flowers, jungle, oriente, photography
Devil ants
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Little bastards
One day, volunteers were put to work ripping down an old, traditional Shuar house. A round structure covered in palm fronds with a cooking fire in the center. Half the house had collapsed, so we salvaged the large timbers and burned the rotting roof.
This did not go well with a colony of biting ants who had since been living in the decomposing mess.
As we tackled the palm roof, they tackled us, biting and biting and biting. Devil ants in your rubber boots is not a pleasant sensation.
Tags: ants, arutam, ecuador, en la selva, insects, oriente, photography, shuar, volunteering
Sacred waters
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Prayer
The Shuar consider waterfalls in their community a source power and respect them deeply. Here, Sebastian, one of the volunteer guides, has a moment of quiet with a waterfall deep in the jungle, after the volunteers finished goofing off.
Tags: arutam, cascada, ecuador, en la selva, environment, oriente, photography, shuar, volunteering, waterfall
Plantas de la selva: Vol. 2
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Almost waxen
Our series of interesting and/or weird plants continues. Any botanist out there can feel free to identify.
Tags: arutam, ecuador, en la selva, environment, oriente, photography, plants
Primary forest, sustainable life cycle
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Old growth
At Arutam, the Shuar community where I worked, the villagers are responsible for a couple thousand hectares of Amazon, allotted to them by the government. Their model, with the hands and dollars of ecotourists and paying volunteers (me), is to develop a small portion of the forest — cutting for banana plantations and fish ponds and whatnot — while keeping pressure off the remaining primary forest.
The above photo shows a tree reaching into the upper jungle canopy. The tree, by the estimates of our guides, could be 200 years old. In the present model, it’s protected because of, not in spite of, the community clearing land nearer the road and their homes for agriculture and aquaculture. Continue reading this entry » » »
Tags: arutam, ecuador, emerging nations, en la selva, environment, oriente, photography, plants, shuar, trees, volunteering
Plantas de la selva: Vol. 1
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under photography
Necesito un libre bontanico
There will be lots of these pictures, of flowers from the jungle, whose name Spanish or English name the local community doesn’t know. Hell, some of them don’t even have Shuar names.
But I’ve photographed them and will wait for word from a botanist, if one is reading.
Tags: ecuador, en la selva, environment, oriente, photography, plants, shuar, volunteering
