Plot Synopsis

In this one-hour reality series, eight out-of-work construction workers from 'Bama dig for gold in the Amazon jungle. Some of the biggest undiscovered gold deposits in the world -- valued at well over $100 billion -- are believed to be in Guyana, South America. It's ready for the taking. But it's also hard to get to. Men have come to this unforgiving part of the world for centuries searching for El Dorado and most have gone home empty-handed -- if they've survived the experience at all! This is untamed territory, with no roads, no infrastructure, and it's populated by deadly jaguars, vicious piranhas, malarial mosquitoes and 20-foot-long alligators. The 'Bama boys bold plan is to go into the jungle with tons of heavy equipment and to get out six weeks later with all the gold that dreams are made of. Alabama real estate mogul Tim Evans, the leader of this expedition, is a self-made millionaire who struck it rich in the construction business until the real-estate market went belly up. Evans decided to bet his last million by leasing and mining a piece of land in Guyana's treacherous, poorly mapped northwest interior, where Amazonian gold is tantalizingly close yet so unattainable. His men -- a team of electricians, carpenters and big-rig operators -- have never mined for gold before, and they are: Chris Gamble, who is deep and debt and so desperate to put his family in the black that he starts making careless mistakes and ignoring the hazards all around him; Darryl Haynes, Tim's foreman and go-to-guy for more than 10 years, who is terrifed of snakes and spiders but didn't think twice when Tim invited him to the Amazon; Steve Hudson, Tim's brother-in-law, who is a master fabricator and welder, showing that he can fix or fabricate anything -- even in the middle of the jungle; Clate McDaniel, a brilliant excavator operator and California hippie, whose maverick ways lead him to butt heads with Tim; Chantz Meadows, a former electrician, who joined the expedition to get his life back on track after blowing a million-dollar injury settlement on his addiction to painkillers; Julius Reed, a soft-spoken father of two, who safeguards the team, protecting them from everything from snakes to dehydration, while mediating the various disputes that threaten to tear them apart; and John Wilson, the youngest member of the team, who's hoping to find enough gold to let his family retire.