Tough Trucks (2018)

In this mini series we explore some of the most unique and hard-core truck journeys on the planet. Destinations in the six part series are Iceland, Guatemala, Turkey, Morocco, Ethiopia and Russia. Our hosts take a series of truck journeys across these lands exploring the many fascinating cultural, natural and historical sites along the way, including unique geological locations in Iceland, ancient Mayan sites in Guatemala and rarely visited Silk Road destinations in Eastern Turkey.

Part 1: Iceland
We begin our journey around Iceland with traveller Laura Guiauchain in the spectacular Fjallabak National Park. We spend a night in the mountain huts at Lanmannalauger before exploring the breath-taking scenery of the park with its geo-thermals, spectacular rocky outcrops, delicately mossed streams, and ubiquitous rainbows and lakes.
Heading along the south coast we skirt past the Seljalandsfoss and Skogar waterfalls which are beautiful but crowded with bus tours from the capital, Reyjavik.
Heading further eastwards we slip beyond the reach of the day tours and out into a more remote and peaceful Iceland. On a sunny day its a mesmerising experience to drive for hour after hour as the scenery changes. One minute you feel you are in the Scottish Highlands then a strange mossy lava-scape takes over, only to be replaced in turn by a vast glacial panorama with the vast Vatnajokoll ice field streching down to the roadside from its icy mouth.

Part 2: Turkey: Silk Road
For thousands of years Turkey has been at the heart of Ancient trade routes linking China and Europe that have brought silk, exotic spices, new cultures and ideas through Turkey to the west and beyond. Trade on the Silk Road played a significant role in the development of civilisations, opening long distance political and economic relations between them. Today these routes still exist, on a larger scale and are carrying more than silk, spices and new ideas.
In this one hour film, presenter Holly Morris discovers who uses this famous Silk Road today, and how Turkey's history has shaped and impacted what remains. Travelling over 1000 miles from Ankara to Mt Ararat in the east, Holly uncovers the products and goods that are brought along the Silk Road routes, and the trucks and truckers that carry them.

Part 3: Guatemala
In this episode Zay Harding travels by truck through Central America's toughest and most spectacular country, Guatemala.
Starting his journey from the National Palace in the centre of Guatemala City, from where all distances in the country are measured, Zay heads first to the dramatic ruins of the ancient Maya city of Mixco Viejo in the highlands just outside the capital. To get there, he travels on a hugely colourful old school bus, driven down from the USA and then reconditioned with a powerful truck engine in order to cope with Guatemala's challenging mountainous terrain.
Heading on along the country's main road, the PanAmerican Highway, in a large 18-wheeler truck, Zay discovers that just as most of Guatemala's buses are driven down through Mexico from the USA, so are most of Guatemala's big trucks. Transferring onto a local truck heading up into Guatemala's highest mountain range, Zay visits one of the country's most beautiful and traditional villages, Todos Santos Cuchumatan, as it celebrates its annual fiesta with a truly remarkable, and extremely dangerous, drunken horse race.
Continuing his journey by hitching a ride along Guatemala's most dangerous road, running the gauntlet of a tectonic fault that causes frequent, fatal landslides, Zay passes through beautiful orchid-filled highland cloud forest en route to the remote lowland jungle of northern Guatemala. Heading further and further into the wilderness along treacherously muddy tracks through the rainforest, Zay breathes a sigh of relief as he eventually arrives safely at his final destination, Tikal, the most spectacular of all ancient Maya cities.

Part 4: Morocco
Laura Guiauchain travels in a variety of trucks to the four "Imperial Cities", seeking the origins of Morocco. Following the ancient trade routes, once the domain of Berber camel trains, but now used by some of the 250,000 HGVs which travel north each year through the port of Tangier. Laura meets truckers and historians to tell the Moroccan story and pinpoint important moments in its' history. Along the way she will experience the Moroccan Hollywood, taste the Berber lifestyle, join the Tuareg Rally and drive the world's first fully electric pick-up truck, the "Aslan".
Starting in a campsite known as "Between Here and Marrakesh", "Le Relais", Laura encounters travellers Roland and Andrea, who have a fifty-year-old Austrian armoured car which they are about to drive for six hours across the Atlas Mountains, to the Sahara. They drop her near the Medina, where Laura gets a henna tattoo. Marrakesh was built on "Love and Water", by the Almoravids. At the Islamic Library, historian and Islamic Scholar, Jafaar Kansoussi, reveals an Almohad Koran as a beautiful and important work with ancient calligraphy, which pre-dates the Koutoubian Mosque which dominates the City. Mr Kansoussi reveals that the City was built over the Sultan's love for his Queen.

Part 5: Siberia
In this episode Zay Harding travels by truck across the frozen ice roads of north-eastern Siberia, en route to the Arctic Circle. Located in east Asia, 5000 miles east of Moscow, the province of Yakutia where he's travelling is the coldest inhabited place on earth, where midwinter temperatures can drop to well below minus 60 degrees Centigrade.
Starting his journey in the world's coldest city, the provincial capital Yakutsk, Zay firstly heads north to join fuel trucks travelling Yakutia's most dangerous ice road in order to supply heating fuel to the remote mountain village of Sebyan-Kyuyol.
Returning to Yakutsk in a historic Soviet Army truck now used as a taxi, Zay continues his journey along the infamous 'Road of Bones', built at the cost of huge loss of life by prisoners of Stalin's Gulag. En route Zay stops at the village of Tyoply Klyuch to hear how its remote airfield played an important role during World War Two, and then diverts to the very isolated village of Topolinoe, in order to catch a spectacular reindeer-racing festival.
Finally, Zay ends his spectacular Siberian journey travelling north on a tough goods truck navigating a once totally frozen river, which is melting all too fast in the spring thaw, threatening his ability to reach his ultimate goal – the Arctic Circle.

Part 6: Ethiopia
In this episode Zay Harding travels by truck across one of Africa's toughest and most spectacular countries, Ethiopia. Starting his trip from Ethiopia's border with Djibouti, Zay hitches on a goods truck across the burningly hot Afar Desert, one of the hottest places on the planet, across which more than 95 percent of Ethiopia's vital imports are transported.
Climbing out of the desert through the dramatic landscape of Ethiopia's central highlands, Zay travels on to visit Ethiopia's ancient capital Lalibela, home to some of the world's most extraordinary churches, carved out of solid rock. Continuing his journey through Ethiopia's highlands in a classic 1950s FIAT truck, so tough that they were once popularly nicknamed the 'Lions of Africa', Zay heads on to the even more revered ancient Christian site of Axum, where he visits the shrine that's said by Ethiopians to be the true home of one of the world's most fabled religious objects, the legendary Ark of the Covenant.