Survivor: Nicaragua

Survivor: Nicaragua
Season 21
Region 1 DVD cover
Presented by	Jeff Probst
No. of days	39
No. of castaways	20
Winner	Jud "Fabio" Birza
Runner-up	Chase Rice
Location	San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua[1]
No. of episodes	15
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	September 15 (2010-09-15) – December 19, 2010 (2010-12-19)
Additional information
Filming dates	June 14 (2010-06-14) – July 22, 2010 (2010-07-22)
Season chronology
← Previous Heroes vs. Villains Next → Redemption Island
List of episodes

Survivor: Nicaragua is the 21st season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor.^[2] It premiered on September 15, 2010, at 8:00pm, moving to the Wednesday timeslot for the first time since Survivor: Borneo.^[3][4] Applications were due in January 2010, filming started from June and ended in July 2010. Nicaragua and the following season, Survivor: Redemption Island, were filmed near San Juan del Sur in Rivas Department on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua.^[5][2][6]

This season's opening titles uses the original version of "Ancient Voices" — Survivor's opening theme song — first used for the debut Survivor season. Traditionally, each season features its own version of "Ancient Voices", using instruments and sounds meant to evoke that season's location or theme. One was created for Nicaragua but was not used, though the song was released onto iTunes on October 10.^[7] The reason for this omission has not been publicly disclosed. Survivor host Jeff Probst also announced that the Hidden Immunity Idol will continue to be used in the game. However, as idols had been found too easily in the past two seasons, the idol was hidden differently.^[8] The clues to the idols' locations were rebuses rather than text as in past seasons.^[9] In addition, the tribes vied for control of a new item, the Medallion of Power, which offered an advantage to the tribe who held it at a challenge, but should they use the Medallion, it went to the other tribe for the next challenge. This season also marked the return of the tribal swap, which was absent in the previous three seasons. When the tribal swap occurred in episode 5, the Medallion of Power was retired.

This was the second season in which tribes were divided by age, the first one being Survivor: Panama. Jud "Fabio" Birza was named the winner in the final episode on December 19, 2010, defeating Chase Rice and Matthew "Sash" Lenahan in a 5–4–0 vote. Birza became the youngest person to ever win the game, at age 21 years and 6 months. This was the first Survivor season to have an all-male final three. Jane Bright won $100,000 as the "Sprint Player of the Season."