Aboard a seaworthy craft heading down the angry Pacific waters of Central America, sixteen Americans began the adventure of a lifetime. Anticipating a respite before the actual game was to begin, the castaways were comfortably clothed in suits, dresses, even a Boy Scout uniform. But Host Jeff Probst turned everything upside down when he announced that the game was not going to start the next day or the day after that. Rather, it had already begun. This time, the castaways were going in with nothing but the clothes on their backs!
Shock crept across their faces as the realization hit them that they would truly be stranded. Jeff tossed the castaways' sneakers overboard. With only the clothing on their backs and a sack of Panamanian currency, the two tribes were sent to fend for themselves in a local village, where they would have to acquire anything and everything they would need to survive the next weeks. "I'm wearing an Armani suit. How am I going to get by? What am I going to do with a suit?" questioned Shawn Cohen, the 28-year-old advertising sales executive from New York City. One by one, each tribe member jumped overboard and swam towards the small fishing village, where their task would be to use the currency they were given to acquire what they'd need to survive for the next 39 days.
"This is beyond what I bargained for. I knew it was going to be the adventure of a lifetime; I didn't know it was going to be this big of an adventure of a lifetime." explained Ryan Shoulders, the 23-year-old produce clerk from St. Louis, Missouri.