What was is it really like? Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild

I have had many people ask me what was it really like....

It has been many months now since that show was filmed, but what I remember most was really liking the crew. They were funny, super sweet and loved dogs. :)

Here are some things that people might not realize:

1. We had to wear the same clothes for a week, so that they could take any part of the film and put it next to another part.
   1. Our clothes could not be scratchy against the mic
   2. They could not have logos on them
   3. They had to be comfy enough for us to do our regular farm work
   4. Had to be worn for a week straight
2. I was told not to cook Thanksgiving dinner, which was the first day of filming and the schedule was already full. One or two hours before dinnertime, they changed their minds and decided Thanksgiving dinner would be great....haha. I am not a good cook to begin with, but nobody can do a proper Thanksgiving dinner in 1 to 2 hours... Just like living here in Panama, we had to roll with the flow. :)
3. We had to wear the mics all day. No, they did not have an off switch on them for when you use the bathroom or were not even doing something with the film crew. We had them on for about 10 hours a day every day for a week. Sometimes, I would just mutter something ridiculous when I was not even close to the sound guy just to see if he was listening. Yes, he was always listening...haha.
4. There are a ton of parades in Panama in November. We have been to many of them and they usually have kids from all of the schools marching and playing the drums. No, we were not prepared for a parade that had horses, free beer and fireworks. I think we were all astonished at that parade....politicians with lots of beer, riding horses and people lighting fireworks.....Crazy!
5. 7 days of filming and then they had to tell a story in 40 minutes. I am glad that I was not the editor of that! Hundreds of hours to go through and to figure out how to take just a couple minutes here and a couple of minutes there to make it all work into one program.
6. The days were long and hectic at times. Not having experience in the entertainment industry led to much of our confusion also, but the crew was very understanding when we did something we weren't supposed to do.
7. We recognize how fortunate we are that they found us and gave us this one in a lifetime experience. Now we need to go to the UK and find out if we are famous...haha.

We had no idea what to expect, especially when they had a week of our lives all caught on film....thankfully, they have good editors. :) But, I cannot say enough about the staff that made it all work. They were amazing, funny and we will always treasure meeting them.