When Jim Menard wants to get away, he goes on an adventure. He risks everything to be a part of a world that time hasn't touched. A world that involves ancient tribal rituals, steaming jungles, and a diet of 24-inch rats. And when Menard decides to go, he leaves his wife and children behind.
"For me, going on an adventure is a matter of regaining my sanity, a matter of regaining myself," says Menard. When he describes the details of his adventures to Central and South America, he might be compared to Tarzan or Indiana Jones. It's difficult to see him as a life insurance salesman and a father of six from San Bruno.
"When I met my wife and told her of my adventures, she didn't know whether I was a liar or a crazy man," recalls Menard. "She was relieved to find out later I was just a crazy man." Menard met his wife, Theresa, at San Francisco State University nearly 10 years ago. The petite, dark-haired woman joined him at a table for coffee. She listened to him describe his adventures. "In the beginning, I was impressed. I thought it was great that he'd want to understand another culture. I personally don't have those ambitions. I like to travel comfortably," Theresa says.
Today, Menard is putting his adventures in writing. The manuscript for his first book is scheduled to go to a publisher at the end of the month. "As I wrote the book, it became the compelling force, an adventure in itself. And if you feel the force, you can't quit, you can't give up. If you do, you are lying face-down in the mud dying," says Menard. Theresa says, "I don't want to see him take 5 to 10 years to write a book. I feel like it's [the book] not a part of my life, and that's very difficult."
Menard's desire to journey into the unknown stems from early childhood memories of his grandparents' home on two acres of land in Downey, Los Angeles. "When I was 4 or 5 years old, I would sneak out of the house at night and go down to the river. I would build grass houses out of the tall weeds. I would curl up and fall asleep. I felt a sense of coziness and comfort in it. It was my jungle," he says. Menard also remembers looking down at a ravine nearby his grandparent's home. "I told my mom and dad to leave me in the ravine and to come back in a week. They laughed at me, but I knew if they had left me, I'd be OK."
Menard's father told him to always follow his dream. "If you want to go to Africa and hunt wild elephants, you should do nothing less than go to Africa and hunt wild elephants," his father told him, echoing his grandfather's teachings. Menard lives by these words religiously. Theresa, on the other hand, often gets frustrated and wants Jim to focus on his responsibilities more. "I feel alone taking care of his family sometimes. When he finishes writing that book, hopefully it will be a closure on his adventures," Theresa says. But as her aggravation grows, so do the communication barriers within their marriage.
"I have another adventure in mind, and with any success, I'm going to use that money to go back, because I know of a waterway between the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, without going through the Panama Canal, and I want to do it," Menard says laughing.
Menard's adventures only grew larger as he grew older. His first adventure was in 1978 when he got an invitation from a friend to visit Panama. As a single 23-year-old, Jim had his bachelor pad wallpapered with maps. He knew that Columbia in South America wasn't far from Panama, and that Colombia was a gateway to the Amazon. "If you study maps long enough, they'll begin to tell you a story. I'd stare at the maps and think to myself, 'I can do this, or I can get across that'," Menard says.
Leticia, Columbia, a small town bordering on Peru and Brazil, was where Jim began his first adventure. From Leticia, he took a boat to Monkey Island, a 1,100-acre island in the Amazon that served as a base camp. Upon canoeing deeper into the jungle, Menard came across the village of the Yagua Indians. His first question was how was he to earn their trust.
A young girl hands him a steaming bowl. He looks at it and then at the tanned, painted, face of the man behind her. He thinks, "If I drink it, I could die, and if I don't, they might kill me." He drinks the broth that turns out to be sugar cane. Menard makes his first step toward acceptance.
Why would someone risk their life to go on an adventure? Menard is driven by the desire to understand another culture, another place in time. "You can't go back in time, the only thing you can do is go where time hasn't gone yet," Menard says.
Menard was able to earn the trust of the Yagua Indians, and eventually he bartered with and photographed the tribesmen. Menard returned to the United States, but the desire to return to Colombia never left him. "The desire to go is always there for me. It's only a matter of whether I have the opportunity and the means," Menard says.
Years later, Theresa didn't understand Jim's desire to return to Colombia a second time, especially when she'd just given birth 11 months earlier to their son David. "You can't stop people from pursuing their dream. But I don't understand why someone would want to go to the jungle, risk their lives, lose 30 pounds, and eat bugs," said Theresa.
Jim feels he has to take opportunities as they come. The decision for the second adventure came when his life insurance sales began turning out a profit. "The decision to go is made in a moment. It happens all of a sudden and you know the time is right. The desire and the preparation is just innate within you," Menard says. But it was different for Theresa.
"It was very difficult to understand for me," says Theresa. "But it was something he needed to do and there was nothing I could do to change his mind. And besides, I was the first born in my family and I was used to taking care of myself," Theresa says. Menard cut his adventure short the second time and Theresa was pleased he returned home early.
But Menard now intends to follow his dream no matter what it takes. "If opportunities come, he will take them. "If there is something interesting, something that pulls me from my childhood that says 'Here's a blank spot on the map, then [I'll say] let's go fill it,' " he says with a smile. "It's like, to accept me you must accept the whole packageŅif you buy the dog, you get the fleas."
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