LAST EDITED ON 02-09-03 AT 02:37 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 02-09-03 AT 02:12 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 02-09-03 AT 12:35 PM (EST)

I haven't had time to get into this yet, but, Manuel Mendoza, from the News was at the Survivor filming(many know this).

This might be available at Dallasnews.com.

Well, it looks like he is going to have a series of reports.
Todays is 'I survived Survivor - The Amazon'. It's more like a fluff piece on some things he did. I will need more time to read it. But, his Coming soon Stories are:

Secrets of 'Survivor'
Jeff Probst's predictions
Manaus,Brazil

he mentions 'challenge jungle'.
"4 challenges under construction, and 10 of the remaining 18 will be built there...."

There are a couple of pictures there. I'll try and get more into this later.

ok.. I had a minute. this is long. i'll try and get the pictures later...here's the article:

MANAUS, Brazil – For my sins, they gave me a mission. Like Marlow in Heart of Darkness, I am to snake up a black river in search of a powerful man and terminate his command with extreme prejudice. Or at least interview him.

This is not the easiest assignment. The former British paratrooper is living by his own code, going native, surrounding himself with a nearly impregnable army of loyalists, all with one goal: Keep 20 million viewers enraptured.

Warnings about the dangers lurking in the Amazonian rain forest turn out to be a mere diversion, especially when you fall under the protection of a full-scale TV production.

Survivor: The Amazon
Special Report: Inside Survivor

Official site

During one week in this equatorial jungle – just days before Survivor: The Amazon begins shooting in early November – I see no snakes or piranhas. Not once am I bitten by a mosquito. And the showers, advertised as cold, actually emit a pleasant, naturally lukewarm flow.

Even those dedicated to the service of Col. Kurtz, er, Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett, are friendly enough, though sometimes a veil of confidentiality falls over his machinations. In the end, the greatest danger is posed by the buffet laid out for the show's 400-strong crew.

Three times a day, a gaggle of soups, salads, fresh fish and desserts ranging from chocolate mousse to flan are offered in nearly unlimited quantities, not to mention the darkest, richest coffee this side of the rocket fuel brewed by the office-back-home's collective of addicts.

I am one of four journalists invited to glimpse Survivor's latest in-the-wild sets, including tribal council and "challenge jungle," then still under construction in the northwestern Brazilian state of Amazonas. We're also here to interview the show's newly minted cast and veteran producers.

The 35-mile boat ride up the Rio Negro from the depressed city of Manaus to the kitschy lodge serving as Survivor: The Amazon's production headquarters is smooth and uneventful, though not even a Florida native is prepared for the region's stifling heat and humidity.

MONTY BRINTON / CBS
The Ariaú Amazon Towers resort hotel serves as production base for the Survivor crew.
I first see Mr. Burnett – or the grand fromage, as challenge producer John Kirhoffer calls him – shortly after arriving at the Ariaú Amazon Towers resort hotel. Constructed at the treetops to avoid the rising water of Brazil's rainy season, Ariaú is a sprawling maze of tall, round, teepee-style structures resembling a colony of rocket ships that somehow wound up in the forest. In fact, the locals believe UFOs will land here someday.

For now, the buildings, connected by a series of wood-plank catwalks, have been taken over by CBS' sixth edition of Mr. Burnett's reality-adventure juggernaut, which premieres Thursday with a 90-minute special.

The lodge is also populated by its permanent residents: dozens of mischievous spider and squirrel monkeys known for snatching food and destroying rooms that are accidentally left open. Compared to past accommodations, where the crew roughed it in tents and temporary bathroom facilities, these digs are luxurious.

Fit, trim and tanned, Mr. Burnett looks nothing like the bald, corpulent Brando of Apocalypse Now, but the Heart of Darkness/Kurtz metaphor works in other ways. The creative force behind Survivor has remade the tactics employed for decades by old-line broadcasters at war with the ever-expanding cable universe. Refusing to merely skirmish with cable competitors, he has blazed the trail for the reality-TV genre now keeping the traditional networks afloat.

"Heart of Darkness was about someone making their own rules," Mr. Burnett says in an interview at one of Ariaú's picnic tables, located near the lodge's art garden of heroic Amazons and snake-and-jaguar totems. "Kurtz had the right idea."

Mr. Burnett is staying – appropriately – at Ariaú's highest point, the Cosmic Suite. It once hosted astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Other celebs who've visited the lodge include Dolph Lundgren, Bill Gates and Jimmy Carter. Mr. Burnett promises to show me the suite later, and it's worth the wait.

• • •

Journalists visiting the set of Survivor: The Amazon were required to sign confidentiality agreements promising not to disclose the names of the contestants or anything else about the show before CBS does two months later.

And if there were any remaining doubts about the pains the network takes to keep details from becoming public, there's more evidence during a sweaty, 15-minute trek along the catwalks. Armed local military police guard checkpoints leading to a remote section of Ariaú. This is where the would-be reality stars have been stashed since arriving the night before.

Now we're getting to the true heart of darkness: the contestants. What do these people expect from 39 days on a jungle soap opera? During eight almost consecutive hours of interviews, I get an earful. It's a level of access to the contestants that CBS and Mr. Burnett previously had not allowed prior to shooting.

The night before, I'm handed bios of each of these 16 eager beavers and told shush – don't let any members of the crew know you know they're here.

My first interview is with rocket scientist Dave Johnson, who's bright and self-conscious enough to realize this is a game. But it's all downhill from there: a phys-ed teacher is wearing bright blue eye shadow that matches her tank top, apparently filled out by a trip to the plastic surgeon; a middle-aged chatterbox immediately establishes herself as most likely to be voted off first; an insecure comedian walks the line between funny and annoying.

Everyone is so darned genuine, but that's part of the formula. When you're making a reality TV show, you need people so direct they don't know to filter their reactions.

"I think it's the most authentic group we've had in a while," says host Jeff Probst.

Many of them are accomplished, including a world traveler for whom Survivor might be a step down, and an oddly mannered swimsuit model who gives each of the journalists who interview her the creeps. There's also the show's first Asian-American male and the first contestant with a disability – a deaf woman. Both are on missions to shatter stereotypes.

When we get back to the main building, one of the monkeys has found a dead bat. Racing to the roof with dinner in his mouth, he's pursued by his brethren in an all-out fight for the morsel. Will the contestants go at it that hard?

• • •

My trip to Brazil begins in late October with little advance notice. After a passport and visa scramble and four arm-pounding vaccinations, I fly from D/FW to Sao Paolo, where I change planes for Manaus. After one night at the Tropical Manaus, a distressed resort on a sandy beach outside the city of 1 million, I rendezvous with CBS photo chief Francis Cavanaugh for the boat trip to Ariaú.

First, though, there's time for a tour of the Tropical's zoo and designer shopping center. Two bored jaguars yawn in their cages, and the little alligators on the Polo shirts just sit there. Besides the monkeys, macaws and a cricket that gets loose in my room at Ariaú, the only other wild animals to show themselves during the trip are baby caimans – the Amazon's version of a crocodile – and they're at a safe distance in the shallow water below the lodge.

DMN staff
This contrasts with stories of two recent Survivor close calls: a cameraman bitten on the finger by a piranha, and another crew member who saw a large snake in a tree above him and got out of the way just before it dropped to the ground.

Some of the crew surfaces on the flight to Manaus. You can pick them out by their strange, unfashionable hairstyles – dreadlocks, crew cuts. They have the rugged, leathery look of a nomadic hippie tribe. Some are coming from the latest Eco-Challenge, the calling card Mr. Burnett used to convince CBS that Survivor could save the network – or at least challenge Friends and ER on "must-see" Thursdays.

On the bus from the airport, one member of the crew shouts: "Where's the beer?" Everyone laughs in recognition. There's going to be some drinking on this job, along with the grinding work. Mr. Burnett has shot 15 adventure-TV competitions in the past eight years, including five versions of Survivor since 2000. For the sixth edition, he has a twist planned but he doesn't reveal it at Ariaú. This time, it will be the men against the women.

The next morning, I'm startled awake at 6 a.m. by the screeching voice of Robert Plant. A neighboring room is blasting Led Zeppelin. My clothes, unaccustomed to the stickiness of the Amazon, are beginning to smell like an early death.

• • •

A young woman sponges green paint onto a boulder made of polystyrene. It's part of an archway that will be used as the entrance to tribal council. "That's going to be the hardest part, to get these rocks to look real," says Jesse Jensen, an Australian overseeing the construction.

After a day with the contestants, the journey upriver has resumed: It's time for a tour of the sets.

Navigating a canal, we pull up to a dock made of logs. Built by local craftsmen, it leads to a stairway and then a dirt path that will be lit with torches during Survivor's dramatic elimination votes.

Set designer Daniel Munday shows us a cocktail napkin with the first sketch for the tribal council area, conceived over drinks at the Ariaú bar. He also produces a later version with dimensions, drawn in the waiting lounge at the Sao Paolo airport, and finally a full-color rendition.

This is a theme of the Survivor artisans: Casual creativity.

At our next stop, "challenge jungle," John Kirhoffer says he comes up with some of his best ideas while surfing. He's one of the few Americans leading a department, jobs that are usually held by Mr. Burnett's fellows Aussies.

MANUEL MENDOZA / DMN
Morning News critic Manuel Mendoza (front) and Survivor challenge producer John Kirhoffer walk the beam course.
Four challenges are under construction, and 10 of the remaining 18 will be built here. But, it turns out, I've traveled thousands of miles only to be stopped a few hundred feet from more of Survivor's carefully guarded secrets. The CBS publicists, worried about leaks, only let us see the first immunity challenge, called "Unchained."

It's a four-part obstacle course that starts with a bramble of branches the contestants will have to crawl through. That's followed by poles woven with cargo netting that will have to be scaled, twin balance beams and finally "the flying fox," something Mr. Kirhoffer has been trying to work up since the first Survivor.

To win the challenge, the contestants will climb a two-story tower and slide down a rope to the ground. Complicating the course: The contestants will be locked together, first in groups of eight, then four, then two before individually heading for the finish. And they'll have to solve puzzles and retrieve keys to get the locks open.

Where's a helpful monkey when you need him?

The course is so convoluted that three months later, a roomful of TV critics laugh when a preview reel shows host Jeff Probst explaining it to the contestants.

Before heading back to Ariaú, we stop at a small isle separating the Rio Negro from the lagoon where the contestants will fish and navigate to tribal council. Three scrawny dogs charge us, but they're scared off by a machete-wielding local. The camps are over yonder, a publicist says, pointing toward the jungle beyond the lagoon.

• • •

Back at the Ariaú bar, the dangers never cease. Caipirinha is the mixed drink of choice, a quenching, deceptively potent concoction whose name translates to "little country girl." The stereo is blasting "The World Is a Ghetto."

It's Halloween and a production coordinator has made good on her promise to dress up like unit manager ##### Beckett, the skinny, longhaired Australian in charge of logistics. But her costume is all high concept: She simply wears a white T-shirt with "Beckett" scrawled on the front.

A sign posted outside the restaurant advertises a wrap party Mr. Burnett is hosting tonight for the latest Eco-Challenge, which just finished production in Fiji. "This is where we learned to shoot," Mr. Burnett says of the series. "This is where Survivor was born."

Mr. Burnett's shows have become like a circuit; this time, Survivor: Africa winner Ethan Zohn, first Survivor contestant Jenna Lewis and two Road Rules vets have formed an Eco-Challenge team.

"They were thrashed," Mr. Burnett says.

Other former Survivor contestants worked as volunteers in Fiji, with the hope of learning enough to compete in a future edition.

Later, Mr. Burnett shows up at the bar and takes over the conversation at one table. His tales include taking his kids to meet "my friend" King Abdullah of Jordan. Survivor was scheduled to shoot in Jordan in the fall of 2001 before 9-11 made the Middle East too risky. Five weeks out it had to be moved to Marquesas in French Polynesia.

Mr. Burnett still dreams of a Survivor: Arabia; he says it's the most beautiful place in the world. He also fantasizes about ruling over other forbidden realms: the Himalayas in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Madagascar.

We sneak away to his circular, sixth-floor room, and the Cosmic Suite lives up to its name. The solar system is painted on the ceiling, illuminated by lights from a group of suspended miniature canoes. Mr. Burnett jovially recalls that he couldn't find the switches to turn off his celestial view, so he had to sleep under a bright, electrified cosmos.

In an earlier interview, he outlined the many ways he and his acolytes keep the Survivor contestants revved up.

"We scared them a bit by telling them the bad stories, which are true," he says of the Amazon's perceived dangers. "You're not walking down the street in Dallas. You're not driving on the freeway in Los Angeles. It's a different kind of jungle."

But unlike what the contestants have been led to believe, he says, the Amazon is less dangerous than Africa or Thailand, where previous editions have been filmed. Unless, that is, you spend too much time at the buffet.

EDITED to add pictures (I'm in training):

I scanned this out of the paper: