Model ditches her life for the African desert after being robbed at gunpoint

It was a moment that Aleks will never forget - and one that changed the course of her entire life. As a actor and model living in New York, she was walking home late at night from a film set, when she was suddenly attacked.

A man pushed a gun up against her forehead. Fortunately, when they realised she didn’t have anything valuable, they shouted “Move!” and ran off. Aleks took this harrowing ordeal as a literal instruction.

She would move. Two weeks later she was on a plane to Namibia - she was only actually planning to stay for a couple of weeks, but was offered a job and stayed for 13 years.

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Now she is living as a conservationist in the harsh environment of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, where her nearest neighbours are lions, leopards and cheetah.

Aleks Orbeck Nilssen, now 34, tells her incredible story to adventurer Ben Fogle, in a brand new series of New Lives In The Wild, which starts tonight (Aug 14) on Channel 5 at 9pm.

The people Ben Fogle meets in the series have moved to some of the most remote locations on Earth. Are they daring or just downright crazy? It’s a question Ben has asked himself many times, but he’s always happy to make the epic journey to check it out.

In the episode, he travels over 8,250km to Maun in Botswana, before driving east for a further five hours to meet Norwegian conservationist, model and bush guide Aleks.

She has moved to the Kalahari Desert and set up a ‘Wisdom Academy’ for indigenous people, but life is tough. “The Kalahari kind of hates you,” she laughs. Ben is overwhelmed to be greeted by an entire community of local bush people, then further surprised to see a luxurious tourist camp nearby, run by Aleks’s husband Ralph. It’s a tale of two worlds.

Ben finds out how Aleks was a model in her teens, having been scouted at the age of 13, then when she was 18 volunteered at an animal sanctuary in Namibia. She is now in Botswana because she got married. But she insists: “I’ve got a job to do on this planet and I’m on a mission and that doesn’t stop just because I fall in love.”

Aleks recalls: “As a young model I travelled the world in a very short time. I didn’t realise it would be so lonely, I was extremely unhappy.” So she moved to New York. Aleks says: “I was walking home from a film set late at night. I heard these catcalls, which is quite common in New york so I just carried on walking.

"Then they grabbed me and wanted to get money from me. While I am digging through my bag looking for something I suddenly feel something kiss my forehead."

She continues: "That was a gun and so I was held at gunpoint. I went from having so much control, then this moment someone takes away all these control. When they realised I didn’t have anything, they just said “Move” and left. I went back to my flat and didn’t really know what to do. I felt like it was a universal bitch slap. And the fact that he said move, it felt like an instruction."

She adds: “I said to myself I’m going to spin the globe and if my finger lands in the ocean I’ll go on a gap year. And if it lands on Norway I can spin again. And if it lands on a country I’ll go there, unless there’s a civil war. And it was Namibia.

"Two weeks later I was on the plane. I had a weird feeling like roots were growing out of my feet. When I arrived it was like ‘I’m home, but I don’t know why’. I was offered a job so I took a bold leap and went all in.

"I met the tribe that I have now been working with for 14 years and realised I had to work with them. They’ve completely saved me, transformed me. They’ve brought nature to life around me. Could you get a better gift than that?”

Ben says: “I’ve always loved this idea that some of us weren’t necessarily born where we feel we belong. That’s what people spend their life searching for and if you’re one of the lucky ones, like Aleks, you find it. She’s had beauty, money, travel, glitz and glamour, but none of them brought her the happiness that she has finally found here in the desert.”

*Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild starts tonight (Aug 14) on Channel 5 at 9pm

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