PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
For most people, the equator is just an imaginary line around the globe but in this series Simon Reeve comes face-to-face with the reality. On a 40,000-kilometre journey, he reveals the equator as a unique region of our planet; home to both the world's greatest concentration of human poverty and natural biodiversity. Beneath the sweltering heat of the equatorial sun lie paradise beaches, strange foods and exotic wildlife, along with some of the world's most extreme terrains: dense rainforests, towering volcanoes and perilous rapids. Following the line of the equator across South America, Africa and Indonesia, Reeve encounters conflict, massive environmental damage, dictators, pollution, unemployment and desperation in a spectacular travelogue.

Presenter Simon Reeve (Holidays in the Danger Zone)
Series Producer Will Daws (One Day of War, Holidays in the Danger Zone); Executive Producer Karen O'Connor

"Well presented and beautifully shot. I felt as though I were there, then, when I came to, was very grateful indeed that I wasn't" Sunday Times

"There's much natural beauty, dictators, conflict, poverty and a few adventures along the way" Guardian

DURATION
3 x 50'

EPISODE SYNOPSES

1: Africa
Abandoned in a rainforest in Gabon and greeted by circumcisers in Kenya, Simon's journey gets underway.
Simon’s journey begins on a beach in oil-rich Gabon. In the capital, Libreville, he discovers that the country has produced more than eight billion barrels of oil and used to have the world’s highest per capita consumption of Champagne – but the national wealth has always made a select few rich.
Heading East along the Equator line, Simon arrives in a village where locals have been banned from hunting, and now perform traditional dances for tourists. The team drivers then demand £1,000 per day to continue working, and when the BBC crew refuses to pay, the drivers abandon the team in the rainforest. Simon develops a temperature of 40oC and starts vomiting blood: after being diagnosed with malaria, he is forced to rest before continuing his journey east.
A narrow patch of Congo-Brazzaville lies on the Equator, but locals blame foreigners for an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, and the crew are told they could be attacked and killed if they land their small plane. So Simon lands in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a vast country – the size of Western Europe – where at least four million people have died since 1998 in the deadliest conflict since World War II.
A short flight takes Simon to Kenya, where he meets a father-and-son team of traditional circumcisers at a bull-fight. Simon squirms as the father tells him how he gets into a cutting “frenzy” and can cut 100 boys an hour.

2: Asia
In Indonesia, Simon visits a village of sea gypsies and meets tribespeople who want to adopt him.
Simon Reeve continues his epic journey in Asia and finds himself on a sun-kissed island in the far west of Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelagic nation – a collection of perhaps 18,000 islands that are home to more than 220 million people speaking hundreds of languages. Children on the island have never seen a foreigner before, but locals welcome their visitors and invite Simon hunting.
On mainland Sumatra, he hears fears about bird flu and meets the matrilineal Minang people. Men live as guests in their wives’ familial homes, and women propose marriage (Minang men call their daughters “iron butterflies”). In Kalimantan, conservationists warn that hundreds of orang-utans in Borneo – the only great apes living outside Africa – are killed each year as a result of illegal logging; a large tree can be worth $10,000.
In recent years, there have been regular mass-killings in Borneo of immigrants who have arrived from other Indonesian islands (often due to a government policy of trans-migration) by the Dayak head-hunters. One of the men tells Simon why the killings happened and how his family were involved, then offers to adopt Simon. Not wanting to appear rude, Simon accepts, and the next day (following local customs) he gives his “father” a fine pair of trousers, is then blessed with chicken blood, presented with a short sword and adopted.
Three Christian schoolgirls were recently beheaded on the island of Sulawesi, which has a long history of violence between Muslims and Christians. Simon visits a camp of militant Muslims who refuse to answer any questions about their involvement in the fighting; Simon tries to break the ice by joining them for a game of football. On Indonesia’s beautiful Togean Islands, Simon stays in a village of “sea-gypsies” who live in stilt-houses. Expert divers, they take Simon fishing for octopus, and then let him win an underwater breath-holding contest. Simon and the crew then head back to the mainland to get a flight out of Indonesia but are caught in floods that kill at least 220 locals.

3: Latin America
After surviving the most dangerous region in Colombia, Simon is nearly swallowed by a tidal wave in Brazil.
The final leg of Simon Reeve’s series starts in the Galapagos Islands. The islands might look gorgeous, but Simon discovers there are concerns that the 100,000 tourists who visit each year are threatening the fragile ecosystem. Fishermen in the Galapagos also claim they are not being given a chance to earn a decent living on the island, and have allegedly killed several giant Galapagos tortoises in protest.
In the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, Simon makes the difficult climb to the top of El Reventador volcano, known as 'The Exploder'. A local scientist explains that Quito is the world’s most at-risk city, due to volcanic activity created by geological pressures on either side of the equator.
Simon passes through the most dangerous and lawless area of Colombia, where government forces regularly battle guerrilla rebels. A trek through the jungle reveals endangered animals and a remote Indian tribe with a sacred equatorial monument to the 'middle of the world'.
In Brazil, speedboats take Simon along the Amazon River, through vast untouched tracts of the Amazon rainforest, to meet remote indigenous tribes now suffering unemployment and alcoholism. Much of the rainforest in the equator zone in western Brazil is still pristine, and there are numerous tribes living in complete isolation. Several have never had contact with the outside world. However, loggers and farmers are slowly moving in their direction from the south.
Simon races east across Brazil to his final destination in time for the Pororoca wave, a unique natural phenomenon: a tide that coincides with a full moon sends a mini-tsunami up the Amazon tributaries. Experienced surfers (and complete amateur Simon) have one chance to ride the tidal bore before returning to town for a Samba Carnival along the Equator. But he and the boat crew forget that the wave happens twice a day, and their large boat is nearly capsized…