Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Survivor SA Santa Carolina: The rich and famous finally return!


You're reading it here first.


Survivor SA Santa Carolina starting on 20 January at 19:30 on M-Net will finally see the rich and famous return to where the rich and famous partied decades ago.

I've dug up more super surprising info about the mysterious island at Bazaruto and can bring you exclusively and FIRST wonderful photographs of the Santa Carolina island (now known as Paradise Island). If you want to see how it looked THEN and NOW, then click on READ MORE below right now!
You might have missed my previous articles on Santa Carolina where Survivor SA Santa Carolina will take place about it's secret past which you can read HERE and in more in general about the island and where it's located when I broke the news of where the show is being filmed first HERE

Santa Carolina Island was a well-known and much loved exclusive playground for the rich and famous in the 1950's and 1960's when Mozambique was still a colony of Portugal. As I've already written, the Santa Carolina Hotel was a beautiful place on the island - REMEMBER THIS FACT FOR WHEN THE SHOW STARTS.


Above you can see a picture of the hotel taken in its heydey in the mid 1960's, and below you can see how it looks today and what's left of the once glorious, now abandoned structure.




What you might also not know - and look at the photo below of how it looks today - is that there's an rundown and mostly abandoned chapel standing on Santa Carolina.


Finally, here's some super awesome facts I bet you did not know about Santa Carolina Island:

Santa Carolina Island where Survivor SA Santa Carolina takes place is part of the Bazaruto National Park which was established in 1971 to protect endangered species.

It used to be a penal colony where prisoners were sent to.

It's the smallest of the Bazaruto islands and also has an old fort, the remains of which is still there.

Santa Carolina is NAMED after a former garrison commander's wife who died giving birth. Where is her grave? Right at the end of the SMALL RUNWAY on the island.

The first official Portuguese colony was established in 1855 on Santa Carolina. At the beginning it was a commercial ivory trading post (after which is was used as a prison).

This region's population of 250 dugongs is the largest counted on the entire East African coast.

Visitors to this crystal blue waters can see at least 2 species of dolphin, 3 species of whale while 5 species of turtle nestt on its shores.

Paradise Island is 3 km long and half a kilometre wide.

Santa Carolina is circled by coral reef that used to have a lots of pearls (you can still find some although they're harder to find in the few remaining oyster beds).