I made a draft of this blog just before my desktop went dead for a month. It made a drastic change of my buzz score and designated me to the 20th spot on the leaderboard. Quite sad but here I am trying to make up all those lost buzzes and making a move to be back on track.
This blog will let you see some of the islets where the television series Survivor filmed numerous seasons. If you are familiar with the famous reality tv show Survivor then you can definitely relate to what I will be sharing about on this blog. It's a peek at the Survivor filming site for Survivor: Philippines and Survivor: Caramoan. But before I start off let me have an introduction of the reality tv series Survivor before I let you take a peek to the home of the survivors in Caramoan.
SURVIVOR
In order to survive, one must live up to the Survivor's motto and that is to:
Outwit ► one must cleverly make it through the game safe and sound.
Outplay ► one must play better than the other castaways.
and
Outlast ► one must withstand the challenges and live the test of time to stay longer for the entire duration of the game.
Source: survivor.wikia.com
Survivor Logo / Photo Credit: Erlin Yen Yu (Dimpsy) via Facebook
To be a Survivor you need to "Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast" amongst the castaways. Took a photo of the Survivor: Philippines banner that was still hanging in one of the souvenir shops in the island. Survivor is an international reality competition that was franchised and produced in other countries. The format of the Survivor was created by a British television producer Charlie Parsons under the United Kingdom tv production company Planet 24. The first Survivor series that made it to television was in 1997 in Swedish version series entitled Expedition Robinson. On May 31, 2000, there are 36 American series that was aired on CBS hosted by Jeff Probst.
Survivor: Caramoan Opening / Video Credit: Survivor Fan via Youtube
A video from Survivor Fan during the opening of the 26th season of Survivor that was filmed in Caramoan and became the home of the twenty survivor castaways for thirty-nine days but only one castaway will grab the title as the Survivor. This video is an introduction of the twenty castaways and showcasing the beautiful island of Caramoan.
CASTAWAYS
Survivor: Philippines Castaways / Photo Credit: cocoloids
The "castaways" or referred to as the contestants have been selected through applications and casting calls then trimmed down to 16-20 players for each season. In the photo above are castaways of the Survivor: Philippines season. These castaways are divided into tribes in Filipino names: Blue - Matsing (Monkey) Tribe, Yellow - Tandang (Rooster) Tribe, Red - Kalabaw (Carabao) Tribe, and Black - Dangrayne (Dang Rain) Tribe. They were camped at the filming site in an isolated area of Caramoan Island. Each castaway is accountable for its own actions and must learn to adapt the environment as well as to the group of strangers in order to live up to the Survivor motto "outwit, outplay and outlast" that is if he/she wants to be hailed as the "Survivor" and walk away the one million U.S. dollars grand prize.
THE CHALLENGES, REWARDS, IMMUNITY
CHALLENGES
Mudball Challenge / Photo Credit: Matthew Boyer of survivorfandom.com
Challenges are given to the tribes and individually to the castaways for a face off in exchange for rewards. These rewards can either be in foods, self-pampering, luxury items, shelters, and immunity. In the photo, the challenge is called the mudball challenge.
REWARDS
Feast Reward / Photo Credit: Photo Credit: tenplay.com.au
There is always a reward for every challenge and mostly these are feast rewards, self-pampering rewards, and an immunity reward. The photo isn't the actual reward during the Survivor: Philippines season since all photos are copyrighted. This photo is the Samoan feast during the Season 1 episode 13 of Survivor: Samoa after winning the challenge.
IMMUNITY
Immunity Necklace / Photo Credit: survivor.wikia.com
There are different types of immunity and the one on the photo is an immunity necklace. Immunity is given after winning a tribe challenge or an individual challenge. When a tribe gets an immunity that means their tribe is exempted from voting off during the Tribal Council and it goes the same to a castaway who gets an immunity.
THE GAME
What is a Tribal Council?
Tribal Council is a ceremony in the Survivor that happened every third night of the game. It is an elimination by voting one castaway out of the tribe.
Souce: survivor.wikia.com
In the first half of the game, the castaways were assigned to its respective tribes. The objective of the first half game is to have the members of the tribe perform the given challenges as a group striving for the rewards and immunity. The winning tribe who gets an immunity is exempted to get to the next Tribal Council where the tribe discusses the played events together with the host of the show that throws out questions to the players of the tribe in relation to the events. After the discussion and series of questions from the host, voting out of the members of the tribe comes next by writing the name of the member on a piece of paper and dropping it in a box or a jar and whoever gets the highest vote will be eliminated from the game and kicked out from the tribe and putting off the fire from his/her torch. So the main objective of the game is to keep the fire in the torch burning so the castaway can keep on kicking. As what the host Jeff Probst mentioned:
“This is part of the ritual of Tribal Council because, in this game, fire represents life. As long as you have the fire, you are still in this game. When your fire's gone, so are you.” –Jeff Probst
Source: survivor.wikia.com
Tribal Council / Photo Credit: survivor-org.wikia.com
For the second half, there is only one single tribe for this game. Challenges are given to the tribe but performed individually by the castaways for individual rewards and immunity. The players who get eliminated after every Tribal Councils will become juries that will sit on every Tribal Council but with no participation. On the day when there are only two or three castaways left the eliminated castaways will become juries and have their fair share of throwing questions to the 2 or three remaining castaways. After the Q and A, these castaway juries will cast their votes and will make a decision to who among the remaining castaways will grab the one million dollar grand prize and be declared as the "Survivor".
CARAMOAN
Caramoan has numerous islets that made it the favorite filming site of the international franchise television series Survivor. Not only it hosted two consecutive seasons of the Serbian version it also hosted two previous seasons of the Survivor Israel version and two seasons: Survivor: Philippines (Season 25) and Survivor: Caramoan (Season 26) but there are still a lot of seasons of Survivor that was filmed in Caramoan. The entire 8th season of the French edition of the Survivor was shot wholly on the Gota beach and on the neighboring islets. The director chose Caramoan because of its powdery sand, the coconut trees found in Gota beach and the wildness of the island are what French people dreamt. Because of the game show, the island became one of the must-visit tourist spots on the lists of the wander lusters just like us.
Caramoan Group of Islands / Video Credit: Antonio Corado via Youtube
Here is a video from Antonio Corado showcasing two of the group islands found in Caramoan. The two islands are the Matukad Island and Lahos Island that I will be discussing below. It also features the Manlawi sandbar which we, unfortunately, did not get to see during our trip.
GETTING TO CARAMOAN
I can say that our trip to Caramoan was like hitting more than two birds in one stone. Grateful for the Piso fair of Cebu Pacific where we got a very cheap flight from Cebu to Legaspi City and vice versa. Our main purpose for this trip is to visit Mayon Volcano: The World's Perfect Cone Volcano but since there are neighboring provinces that rouse the wanderlust in us we then included a side trip to the home of survivors - Caramoan, CamSur, and Sorsogon.
Mini Paddled Boat / Photo Credit: Erlin Yen Yu (Dimpsy) via Facebook
We took a bus bound to Naga City and alighted at Naga City Central Bus Terminal. Took another bus bound to Sabang Port. From Sabang port, we took a motorboat that will transport us to Guijalo port but unfortunately, the triggered boat can't dock because there was no more space for our triggered boat to dock. So we rode a small paddled boat that is good for 3 pax including the paddler so we can alight on the Caramoan Feeder Port. It's a bit scary because of the size of the boat but the distance though from where the triggered boat stopped was less than just 5 meters and it was a fun ride.
SUNRISE IN CARAMOAN ISLAND
Sunrise in Caramoan / Photo Credit: Erlin Yen Yu (Dimpsy) via Facebook
When on an island I always chase the sun as it rises and as it sets if time and weather permits. Before the early schedule for Caramoan island hopping, we went on a stroll to chase the rising sun. That morning was a bit doomy but later behind those clouds, we saw tiny sparkles of orangey rays until finally, the sun showed up and made my day complete.
EXPLORING CARAMOAN ISLAND
There are islets that you can explore and enjoy in Caramon and we were able to tick a few islets off from the list. The islets that we ticked off are Lahos Island, Matukad Island, Sabitang Laya Island, Bag-ing Island, Minalahos Island, and Gota Beach. There is a famous sandbar in Manlawi but unfortunately, the sandbar didn't show up because the sea level that time was not on its lowest tide level. Let me share with you the islets of Caramoan where it became the home of the Survivors.
1.) LAHOS ISLAND
Lahos is a Visayan term for "pass-through".
Lahos Island / Photo Credit: Erlin Yen Yu (Dimpsy) via Facebook
The white sands of the island are spread through passing in between the two rock formations that divided the island into two beaches. What you can see in the above photo is the calm side of one of the two beaches. I like the other side of the beach because it was on that side where we're having so much fun playing with the rough waters. And by the way, this is the island where most of the challenges of the Survivor series were filmed.
Lahos Island - 2nd Beach / Photo Credit: Nico Tabz via Facebook
This is the second beach of the Lahos Island-the unseen side of the photo above. If you can notice the waters of the two photos the one on top is calm while the second photo is a bit wavy. But as we took a dip in the second beach the water started to make splashes so strong that our bodies are carried away to the shore. It is on this island that I'd like to say -- our trip to the home of survivors in Caramoan was all worth it.
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END OF PART I
Part one is an introduction to Caramoan and the Survivor. There are still a lot of photos that I'd like to share to showcase the tourist spots of Caramoan. I personally like the place a lot and no doubt why Survivor seasons were filmed in this islets for some episodes. From the sand, rocks, sea waters and the greenery environment, Caramoan is a perfect description of the wild where one has to survive remotely thus making it the home of the Survivors.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the second part of this blog where Caramoan Islets will be showcased. Until my next travel blog!
♥ ♥ ♥
This blog is written and submitted by Dimpsy for Bitlanders.
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