So as I mentioned, there were three Survivor shows filmed in the Pearl Islands and numerous foreign Survivors as well. During production, the crews stayed at either the Hotel Punta Galeon or the Hotel Contadora. Hotel Contadora is just down a little road next door to the hotel we are staying in. It is situated on the most beautiful beach on the island, a long stretch of white sand with beautiful warm water. In it's day, the hotel was a beautiful, huge resort that could easily accomodate the large production crews, and during these times, it was usually booked for a three to four month stretch of time. Today, this hotel is one massive shell of a ruin, overgrown with greenery and completely stripped of everything-furniture, doors, fixtures, absolutely everything. The once beautifuls pools have all been filled in and are now just overgrown with switch grass. Even the pool pumps are gone.
Most of the locals will have a different take on the same basic story, and it goes that the owner was killed in a plane crash. His heirs used the inheritance for everything except the hotel and so basically the hotel just stopped. Where the local stories got vague was what happened next. From what we could gather, there are probably few homes on the island that don't have a piece of the Contadora....so the story goes.
It was just strange walking through it and imagining how grand it once was, really not too long ago.
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