Bear in the jungle

Man Vs Wild enters a new season that takes host Bear Grylls through a journey that makes Alice in Wonderland seem like a yawn. We caught up with the adventure junkie to know what it's like to fall out of a plane, among other things

How did the concept of Man Vs Wild emerge?
Discovery channel approached me and said, "Listen, we know what you do, could we do a show where we drop you in the middle of nowhere and we film? We just want to film you doing what you're doing; the good, the bad, the ugly, the muddy." I actually said no three times because I didn't want to be a TV host and I was doing these expeditions. Then one day thanks to my my wife, I decided to try it and it was really fun. I've never felt any sort of pressure to make it all look smart, and I've never been afraid of showing it when it all goes wrong.

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Tell us about one unforgettable incident that occurred while you were shooting the last season?
Our entry into the Mojave Desert wasu00a0 difficult; hanging inverted under a biplane at 8,000 feet. Life definitely became interesting. Skydiving from a biplane is anything but straightforward. And the simplest way is for the pilot to flip the plane upside down and drop me out. We had to flip the plane upside down so could just fall away.

After ingesting all sorts of strange foods in the wild, what kind of food do you enjoy when you are back home?
I hate spinach, but I don't mind because I've eaten everything from frozen yak eyeballs to camel intestinal fluids to raw goat's testicles to raw big puff adder snakes to scorpions to camel hump fat to giant spiders.

How do you prepare for your episodes?
I always pick the stuff I'm going to do. I work to my levels and my skills, and I do the things that I feel would work and I'd want to do. So, if anything, I think it's the other way around. I like to be ambitious through it and I like to come up with new ways of doing things. The element of survival that I enjoy the most is the ingenuity side of it. There are thousand different ways of doing things if you could just think a little bit left field when you are faced with a problem. That's the side of it that I really love.

How many times have you been injured while shooting, and what has been the worst injury?
I've been attacked by bees, bitten by snakes, stung by scorpions; I've broken both toes, I've dislocated a hip, I've smashed my knees, I've broken an elbow. But I always take a little laminated picture of my family that I stick in my shoe. That's always there. It helps.
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After Mission Everest and Frozen Ocean, what's next on the agenda?
I'm just amazed at how huge the world is, actually. Everest was a huge dream since I was really small, so I felt very lucky to get the chance to take an expedition there. I've got loads of things on my bucket list. My problem is I'd need about ten lifetimes to scratch the surface of all the things I'd love to do.
Man Vs Wild will air on Discovery at 9 pm starting February 7.

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