Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [50]
Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Suddenly, a light went on. Hearing that word—team—it came to me: now I knew why everyone was so upset. It was because of my well-advertised aversion to, and undeniable feebleness in the face of, danger.
Ever since Australia, when I'd resisted going down the opal mine on a faulty winch that was only marginally safer, according to the guy operating it, than hurling myself into the fifty-foot shaft headfirst, rumors had filtered back to Los Angeles that, somewhat bizarrely, the star of this major global adventure travel series: (a) didn't seem to enjoy traveling very much; and (b) was not adventurous in the least. If nobody believed me at the start when I told them I was a totally new breed of daredevil, the kind who's not remotely daring and takes no risks whatsoever, they were sure believing it now.
In television, where people will do almost anything for money, even if they can't then spend it because of being dead, self-preservation is seen as pure heresy. Whereas in my world it's Priority Number 1, which merely proves how ahead of my time I am.
In hindsight, if I had to nominate one incident that best illustrates the problem, and which, in some people's jaundiced eyes, spoiled the show, it would probably be the one in New Zealand.
A breezy March morning. I was fresh off a ferry boat in Queenstown on the South Island. Billed as the Adventure Capital of the World, Queenstown cowers before a sweeping amphitheater of mountains arranged like banks of snowcapped throw pillows on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and reflected in smooth waters of cobalt blue. But here's the problem: you can't go calling your town something as bold as the Adventure Capital of anything without subsequently attracting a broad spectrum of type A daredevils hell-bent on killing themselves, if they can only figure out how. Luckily, whatever your self-annihilation needs may be—parasailing off a perilously high peak; jet-boating along turbulent, boulder-strewn rivers; bungee-jumping—Queenstown has it all. Especially the last one.
The thing they don't tell you about bungee-jumping is that it involves throwing yourself off a ledge at a great height and tumbling at enormous speeds toward the ground. Or maybe they do; I didn't read the leaflet.
The sport originated in Vanuatu, and continues there to this day on the island of Pentecost, where it's called naghol, or land-diving, a timeless ritual in which teenage boys attempt to prove to their tribe that they've matured into manhood (and possibly don't want to get any older) by building a rickety seventy-five-foot tower, then tying vines to their ankles and leaping off the top. Done right, the boy's head skims the earth, fertilizing the soil for the upcoming harvest. Done wrong, his whole body ends up fertilizing the soil for the upcoming harvest.
Now, I need hardly tell you that jumping off rickety towers isn't an exact science. Many times the practice results in catastrophe. Either the vines snap and the kid plunges to the ground, breaking his neck. Or the vines are too long and he slams into the earth and is knocked unconscious. Occasionally, things go a little better and the boy merely feels his spleen burst open on impact. The whole thing's a lottery, really.
Anyway, back to the story.
New Zealanders Henry Van Asch and his business partner A. J. Hackett were the first to see the potential of land-diving as an extreme sport. If only there was a way to reduce that pesky death-toll thing, they thought, which research showed might deter repeat business and be a turnoff to certain customers. So over the next two years they worked diligently in tandem with the University of Auckland to invent a super-strong cable that wouldn't snap under pressure. This became the bungee they use today.
No sooner had I walked into his office and met Henry, a cheerful, strapping, curly-haired shortcake