Mariana van Zeller

First of all, the uncertainty of not knowing.

There were all these – the West African states were threatening invasion.

The Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group, were saying that they were going to come and protect the new military coup leaders.

And so it was a power struggle between the United States and Russia.

And that's sort of the last place you want to be, right?

Wow.

And, again, no protection.

I'm there with my team.

I'm sort of the boss in that situation because I'm the owner of the company that produces this.

I'm the host of the show.

I'm the executive producer.

And I felt very responsible for my team as well.

And, yeah, the clock is ticking.

And they're telling us that in a few days we're going to invade and there's going to be a massive possibility of a massive war.

And we're stuck with, again, no protection and no way out.

So it was really, really scary.

That's the interesting part.

So the funny thing is that there was an American military base, actually, one of the biggest Air Force bases ever built.

It costs over $100 million to build just two miles from our little hotel in Agadez.

We were the only foreigners there apart from aid workers that sort of live behind barbed wire and in compounds.