Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild | Preview (Channel 5)

Adventurer Ben Fogle is back, joining a variety of brave individuals who chose to venture down a very alternative path to everyday life.

Ben wants to discover the reality of leaving it all behind, and meets those who’ve chosen to ditch a life dominated by debts and daily grind and go in search of something different.

In this episode, Ben visits musician Vanessa Forero. He finds out what took his host from her native Yorkshire to life on a remote South American mountainside, and hears of the events that bind Vanessa to Colombia’s violent past, and how her beautiful home is helping heal her own wounds.

Ben meets Vanessa deep into the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated mountain range in the north of the country. He discovers her magical home, a once overgrown cow pasture but now an idyllic mountain sanctuary.

Together they tackle home improvements on the steep mountainside, from a new cable car to building walls, and they receive a visit from an indigenous leader. Ben helps Vanessa compose music and hears one of the most extraordinary survival stories he’s ever heard.

Returns Tuesday 2nd January on Channel 5.