Hot tropics

But his most violent, and possibly most embarrassing, encounter was with a masked female wrestler in Mexico at the start of his 18-country tour for his Tropic Of Cancer series.

She battered and bruised him. “It’s not funny,” he admits. “I had the bruises in parts of my body I couldn’t show the camera for weeks.”

Tropic of Cancer follows previous series, Equator and Tropic Of Capricorn.

He enjoys the tricky logistics of planning such an epic trip. “Our journey is dictated by the line. Sometimes it takes us to a city, sometimes places people have heard of and sometimes somewhere foreigners haven’t been for decades.”

He hopes the result is a blend of travel and current affairs “to get global issues and stories from faraway countries on the telly”.

Mexico was chosen as the starting point because of the prospects of beautiful scenery, interesting travel aspects and the ability to take them quickly into the heart of the local drugs war.

Following the line across North Africa, they became the first foreigners for 30 years to go through South Algeria, after the authorities opened up the borders for them.

The team didn’t get into China “because they were having a spat with the BBC”. That was the only country to refuse them. They didn’t ask Burma, as the BBC is banned from there. That didn’t stop Reeve going into the country, travelling to a remote section of the India-Burma border and crossing covertly into Burma via a ramshackle zip wire across a turbulent river.

“We were very well prepared. We had everything we needed in case of a total emergency – food, water, camouflage shelters and machetes tied to our waists in case we had to drop our bags and run,”

he says.

They had to flee when told a Burmese army patrol was close by. “It would’ve been bad for us if we’d been captured, but catastrophic for the incredibly brave young female political activist who was guiding us in. She lives in exile abroad and is on the Burmese military wanted list but wanted us to film the suffering of the people,” says Reeve.

It’s not wish-you-were-here sunny holiday snaps. He uses words like adventurous, frightening and dangerous in relation to this Tropical trip.

“I am not foolhardy or gung-ho. Everyone’s conscious of the risk involved, although we did sometimes make jokes about the risk assessment that has to be followed before we’ve even left the building,”

he says.

He never takes anything for granted.

“There’s not a day passes where we didn’t have an experience that’s stunning mentally or visually. It really is an amazing world. Travelling along the line for weeks you do get to see some gobsmacking sights. I’m not blase, I don’t come from a wealthy travelling background.”

Reeve’s career began in an office post room in his late teens and then into publishing.

He wrote a book on al-Qaida in the Nineties “which no one read when it came out, but was the only book out there when 9/11 happened”.

HE says that “my world changed just as the planet changed and I started doing TV interviews about the book”. That, in turn, led to his TV series.

“I love doing it. I complain when I haven’t slept for two days and am exhausted, but it’s the most amazing honour and privilege,” he says.

Essentials taken on trips include Marmite and Yorkshire teabags. He also has his camerawoman wife, Anya, for company among the film crew.

“It works really well,” says Reeve. “She keeps me under control. You can’t have a hissy presenter fit when your wife is doing the filming.”

His next destination is undecided. “I’ve been to 95 countries, which is a crazy number, but there’s still quite a large planet out there I haven’t been to,” he says.

“My aim now is to finish the series then paint the front door and put up fences – jobs undone for several years.”

■ Tropic Of Cancer: tomorrow, BBC2, 9pm.