Peters - Naked in dangerous places: the chronicles of a hungry, scared, lost, homesick, but otherwise perfectly happy traveler

F irst, let me thank the lovely people at Discovery for allowing this story to be told. That was pretty darned decent of them and I appreciate it. Unfortunately, it couldn't be the whole story If I told you the whole story, this wouldn't be a book, it would be a twelve-volume set and you'd never get it home on the bus. In order to squeeze in as much as I could, therefore, I tweaked the timeline a little, occasionally condensed recurring situations into one, and made a fraction of the characters composites of several real people I encountered during the making of the series. I didn't want to do this, and the individuals in question probably won't thank me for it, but remember, it was either burden you with a dozen unwieldy, expensive volumes you might never read, or the single, rather cute one you're holding right now. That said, none of this distorts the narrative too much. What follows is how things went down, pretty much.

Additional dollops of gratitude go out to my amazing agent, Betsy Amster; my lawyer, Dina Appleton; Brandi Bowles for championing the book at Crown; Adam Korn for his insightful edit; Heather Proulx for her insightful edit and voracious enthusiasm; Ronald H. Brower for his help with the Eskimo language stuff; the Lonely Planet guides and Wikipedia for doing what they do; plus Bill Margol, Len Richmond, David Austin, Terry Danuser, Ryan Ely, Lulu Baskins-Leva, Christine Richards, Sylvana Robinson, Sheril McCormack; the brilliant C. Dalaklis for his guidance (which I so foolishly ignored); the production people at the office; and the gifted and long-suffering crews who came out on the road with mein particular Michael Gatt for his wit and the steady education in kindness. But, above all, to Stanley for still being there when I finally returned home.

T his is it. We're going down.

A painful grinding sound from one of the engines heralds a sharp drop in altitude. And painful grinding sounds of any kind on a plane are never good, right? I've seen documentaries. First comes the grinding, then you smell smoke. And from there it's all pretty straightforward: you crash.

With a violent shudder we tip suddenly to the left.

Yup, here it comes.

Bags somersault to the floor. Tasha, our field producer, is thrown forward, almost banging her head on the seat in front. My Gatorade is jolted from my fingers and skitters away, disappearing into the cockpit.

Mayday, Mayday!

That's me panicking, by the way, not the pilot. A trained professional, he's busy surveying the ground through a small triangular panel of Plexiglas to his left, no doubt trying to figure out how long it'll be before we hit something.

Immediately he sits up straight again.

Uh-oh! Not much farther now, then.

As I'm hanging on, mortified, five rods of brilliant sunlight burst through the starboard windows and sweep the tiny cabin from front to back like deep-sea divers searching a sunken wreck for bodies, something that could actually become a reality very shortly if we don't level our descent. Although, of course, you learn not to express such things out loud. For a start, it might annoy Eric, our field production coordinator. And you never want to do that. It was he who booked us on this bucking clockwork junk heap in the first place, following a minor altercation at check-in back in Australia over the staggering amount of equipment and other luggage we'd wanted to wheel aboard the aircraft, the combined weight of which was so preposterously excessive that, according to the waspish airline clerk, it would have negated every one of the laws of aerodynamics. (She probably had a good point. I have no idea how many laws there are, but let's say for the sake of argument fifteen. I mean, who in their right mind would choose to break all fifteen laws of aerodynamics? It's crazy.)

Okay Here's an idea, Eric argued, running a thin hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. What if we redistribute the equipment between the various cases? How about that?

Er you could, I suppose. But wouldn't Her brow corrugated into a frown. the total weight be exactly the same?

In a way.

Then no! No, you can't.

I saw his round shoulders quiver with suppressed rage.

Oh dear.

Sensing a small mutiny in the making, one of many this trip, I exchanged an uh-oh glance with Tasha, and distanced myself by flopping down on a suitcase, cracking open and letting the rest of them get on with it.

Letting other people get on with things is very much my way. I'm terribly hands-off as far as problems are concerned.

Look, darlin, Eric growled, hooking himself over the desk, here's the deal, okay? We're trying to make a television show Ooh, clever. Playing the glamour card. so what would it take to get us o?

But the poor woman had heard enough. Sir, please stand to one side. Youeverybody in this groupstand to one side and let the other passengers through. Next.

With great relief, the young couple behind us shuffled forward in line, tickets at the ready

What if

only to stop again with a groan. Eric wasn't budging.

Next!

we bought more seats for the bags?

Sir, the flight's full. If you like, we can put the excess on tomorrow's flight. That m

Nope, he cut her off, then sighed heavily. No, don't worry, it's fine. We'll go elsewhere. Turning his back: You're not the only major airline that goes to Vanuatu, you know.

This brought a smile to her face.

Well, actually, sir

The phone call that started it all came out of the blue.

Hi, is that Cash? a male voice said. Cordial, controlled. How's it going?

Great. Why who are you?

I'm the new vice president of development at ______