Haven In Hell – NightHeaven's Blog

This week’s The Amazing Race continues in Chile. All teams are asked to make their way back to Santiago from Valparaiso, then they must take a bus to Puerto Varas. Though Jeff and Jordan are given a head start, they only to find out the bus station opens at 5 AM. So, everyone seem to be on the same start line again.

While waiting, Carol and Brandy decide to form an alliance with another team, and they believe Joe and Heidi is the team that have what it takes to succeed. And all four of them agree. It turns out to be a good alliance, at least for this week. Joe and Heiti save a spot for Carol and Brandy when they are waiting in line (which pisses the detectives’ team very much), and there are only four tickets available for the first bus.

Most of the other teams have to take another bus that is several hours later, while three teams take advantage of a quicker route that involves a stop in Temuco. The three teams are Jet and Cord, Jeff and Jordan, and Brent and Caite. The last team to leave the bus station is Shannon and Jody, but not too far behind the other teams.

However, it turns out that Jet and Cord are the only team to take advantage of the short cut. Jeff and Jordan and Brent and Caite have an earlier but than the cowboys, but their bus leaves at a bus station that’s 10 minutes from where they were dropped off. Jet and Cord learn about this fact while trying to get on the earlier bus, but they decide to keep their mouths shut, and it pays off big time.

The cowboys are the first team to arrive at the Petrohue Hotel, they then have to drive themselves to the detour. The stick shift feature of the cars that drive makes a few teams frustrate a bit. Dan and Jordan struggle with the vehicle and their sense of direction. Louie and Michael find themselves lost along the way as well.

When teams reach their destination, they then have to take a boat to an island surrounded by volcanoes, and their detour. The detour is either to adorn a llama or to fly like a condor. In adorn a llama, teams have to put a scarf around the neck of a llama and a blanket over it’s back side. In fly like a condor, teams must dress in a tandem bird suit and run off a pier to reach a buoy that holds their next clue.

It’s no surprise what the cowboys would choose, adorn the llama. Jet completes the task with relative ease and the cowboy team continue the race way ahead of the others. Caite and Brent and Jordan and Jeff are the only two teams to fly like a condor, as it’s a bit cold out there.

The next clue is  ”Get yourselves to higher ground,” which sends teams to Bella Vista where they find the clue for this week’s Roadblock. “It’s time to make the kuchen.” The word kuchen confuses teams a bit at first, but they soon find out it’s German for cake. The task has each team gathering the ingredients that comprise the kuchen. In other words, this is another task designed for the cowboys.

Jet has no problem milking the cow, raiding the chicken coop for 13 eggs, carrying the bag of flour, bowl of sugar and stick of butter back to the kitchen to get their final clue. As they leave the farm, the other teams just arrive.

Michael, Jordan and Monique struggle with the milking part, but they all get through without wasting much time.

The first team to arrive at the pit stop is Jet and Cord. Next up are Joe and Heidi and Carol and Brandy, who have proved their ideas of teaming up to be a nice one. Caite and Brent moves up to number four, while Monique and Shawne pull into fifth. Coming in sixth are Jeff and Jordan, Steve and Allie make their way to seventh. Dan and Jordan, wasting some time in asking for direction, are number eighth.

Louie and Michael, though lost in their way to the Roadblock, manage to outpace Jody in the task of milking, and ultimately pull ahead of Shannon and Jody.

The last team to arrive is Shannon and Jody, the grandmother and granddaughter team that struggle most in their way, who are eliminated.

All teams set out from the Mekong Delta on moving boat, on the way to find a puppet theather in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. All teams try to find taxis except Lance and Keri, they just run around trying to find the theater as they think they’re in Ho Chi Minh City. My doubt of Lance being a lawer grows much higher now. Has he won any case?

Flight Time and Big Easy are the first to reach the theatre, where they have to pull small clues from the mouths of dragon puppets, darting back and forth in the water. There is a bullet in each clue, containing a stamp of a building, their next stop. Each team has their own creative way of getting the clues, teasing with the puppet, attacking it, etc. And everyone quickly finds the stamps inside the bullets, except Lance and Kerri, again. They wasted time going around asking for clues.

The building’s a post office, where they find their first detour: Child’s play or Wor Play. In Child Play, teams have to move a animal figurine from one side of the park to the other, gathering five balloons on the way. For Word Play, teams have to go to the top of a hotel and look down on the busy crossroad, searching for six letters on various transportations going around it. Then they’ll have to unscramble the letters to form “doc lap”, a Vietnamese word for “independence”.

Everyone opts for Child Play, only Marcy and Ron go for the Word Play.

Sam and Dan try to help Maria and Tiffany when they hit a snag with their dolly, nice guys. Though Maria and Tiffany ask them to move on without them, good competitors. Zev and Justin chooe the giraffe statue, the largest of all, and end up smashing it. Lance, loses one of the balloons, almost loses his emotions as well. Marcy and Ron are doing quite well at first, then they have some trouble getting the last letter. By the time they get all six letters, most of the other teams have left the park for their next stop. Instead of asking the locals, they try to unscramble the letters by themselves, thinking the word could be on a sign nearby.

The clue they get after finishing the detour lead the teams to a chop shop at a busy intersection, there a Roadblock awaiting. Each team is given 2 VCRs, they have to break it down and sort the parts into piles. Flight Time and Big Easy, Meghan and Cheyne are the first two teams to arrive and get to work neck and neck. Back to Marcy and Ron, they are still looking around all the signs with the word on it, to no avail. Finally, a local helps them decode the word. By then the two first two team at the Roadblock already finish their chopping and heading for Reunification Palace, the pit stop.

One after another, teams reach the chop shop, and no one seems to beat others in the process. Lance and Kerri are still quarelling which way to go, and they become the second last team to arrive. However, Lance decides to simply rip the VCRs with his hands, tearing every pieces out, which make them catch up a lot of time. Meanwhile, Marcy and Ron are still on the way. While Flight Time and Big Easy and Meghan and Cheyne are neck and neck on their way to the pit stop, Flight Time and Big Easy outrun the couple by a few seconds, earning them a first place of this leg and a trip to Aruba. Other teams finish the leg by the following order, Mike and Gary, Brian and Ericka, Sam and Dan, Maria and Tiffany, Mika and Canaan.

Marcy and Ron get to the Roadblock after both lance and Kerri and Zev and Justin leave. It’s another footrace between the two teams, and Zev and Justin win. Good news is both teams are safe. Marcy and Ron are the last team to arrive, and they are eliminated from the race. It’s a pity to see them go, I think they have the potential of going far in the race, the detour eats up too much of their time. Anyway, best wishes to them.