You are wrong there, actually. The equator is never as hot as the tropics.
In all my years living in Kenya I never knew a day hotter than 34 degrees, and that made headlines!
Most evenings one needed a cardigan.
I lived most of the time 300 miles inland, where daily maxima were usually 26/27 degrees, and daily minima were usually 16/18 degrees.
There's a very simple reason for this. Every day has 12 hours day to heat up and 12 hours a night to cool down.
The lines of the tropics will have a period each year when the sun is directly overhead, but will have 14 hours of heating followed by only 10 hours of cooling.
Here in Spain I can experience summer days over 40 degrees. The highest was 45°C, in the shade with free air access.

@Petter Thank you for educating. I am ignorant of my own ignorance, and I delight in people dragging me out of it.

@anglophone That makes you a wise man.

Oh! Scorchio!