Airport Loungin' Around

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 6 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Uchenna & Joyce being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the first team to be safe from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located on the grass out the front of the Fortaleza de Maputo (literally, ‘Strength of Maputo) in Maputo, Mozambique.

The Detour for this leg was ‘Solve It’ or ‘Schlep It’. In ‘Solve It’, teams had to make their way one third of a mile to the Beyt al Chai hotel where they would put together a 62-piece puzzle that recreates an image from a style of local artwork known as Tinga Tinga. In ‘Schlep It’, teams made their way one mile to the Kijangwani Lumber Yard. Once there, they had to choose a local handcart and load two 50-pound logs into their cart. Once loaded, teams had to travel more than a mile to deliver the logs to a shipyard.

This leg's Roadblock had one team member learn how to use a traditional wooden weapon called a rungu used by members of the Maasai people by throwing it 65 feet to destroy clay targets in order to retrieve their next clue from inside.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Charla & Mirna
2. Dustin & Kandice
3. Teri & Ian
4. Oswald & Danny
5. Joe & Bill
6. Eric & Danielle
7. Uchenna & Joyce


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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This episode gave new meaning to the term ‘Airport Equaliser’, although it was anything but equal. Someone with better maths skills than me informed me that there was an amazing 27 hour gap between the first flight out of Johannesburg and the last, so the eventual winners of this leg were able to benefit from a longer-than-usual Pit Stop (normally only 12 hours, but they had to wait for everyone to arrive before the 12 hours started). This should see an even more relaxed and recuperated couple of teams in the lead and an perpetually harried final couple of teams in the next episode.


1. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 1
This week: No change

The first thing I noted in this episode was Mirna telling her taxi driver, “Don’t hit the people, mister”, which earned her the vicious scowl the comment deserved. The girls managed to infuriate the woman at the first airport counter who refused to serve them until morning and wouldn’t let them make any calls on her phone (fair enough, really – no need to talk to her like she’s a child or an idiot). The decision to fly to Johannesburg and try their luck there was the smartest move they’ve made on the Race so far (Johannesburg being a much bigger city than Maputo, so the likelihood of more flight options would be vast – why nobody else thought this was a wise idea is frankly beyond me), and from there they managed to talk their way onto the best possible flight to Tanzania. Upon reaching the dhow (the ferry boat thing), they are told that due to a storm that’s purportedly on its way (scoff), they’ll have to wait until the following morning. The shots of the (utterly harmless) clouds and the sound of thunder did nothing to convince me that this was anything other than the producers trying their best to close the gap a little and keep the episode interesting. If the girls hadn’t still finished in first place, I might have been a bit angrier about this than I am. It was transparent and pretty harsh, seeing their good decision-making was being penalised for being too good! (Those who can’t stand Charla & Mirna would have been pleased with this set-back, but no matter who it was, it’s was unfair.) Oswald & Danny were the second team to the dhows, so they shared with Charla & Mirna (the dhows could carry a maximum of two teams per trip). On the way, Charla was seasick, and when Oswald applied a cold compress to the back of her neck to help, she replied with, “You guys know a lot of beauty tips”. Beauty tips??!!? Well, I guess we can cut her some slack, considering she was so sick at the time. When they arrived at the Pit Stop in first place, host Phil Keoghan informed them that they’d each won a catamaran, and naturally he then had to explain to them both was a catamaran is.




2. Oswald & Danny


Last week: 4
This week: Up two places

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but whenever I speak about these guys (to Wifey or the seven workmates of mine who are all avid fans of the show), I refer to them as Donny & Osmond. I just wanted to share that with you. These guys were lucky to catch up to Charla & Mirna at the dhow, and were unsurprisingly good at the ‘Solve It’ Detour task. Why they then stopped for fruit instead of high-tailin’ it to the Pit Stop is beyond me (actually, they said they were dehydrated and I believe them – but still!), because it cost them their newly-acquired lead. Danny’s instruction to Oswald when he was throwing the rungu at the clay pot (“You’ve got to have a limp wrist!”) was a carefully chosen phrase for comic effect. These guys are good fun and very nice (helping Charla on the dhow and not ridiculing her for her ‘beauty tips’ comment), but sometimes they need to think smarter. I know it’s in them; hopefully they bring it out in the next leg. Losing first place because they stopped for fruit should hopefully remind them of what they’re there for.




3. Uchenna & Joyce - ”Marked For Elimination” (but SAFE!)


Last week: 7
This week: Up four places

This was a great comeback from these two, who were “marked for elimination”, as the new lingo goes. They arrived at the mat in third place, had to wait their half hour, but still managed to hold on to their third place spot. It was amusing to hear Uchenna basically giving Dustin & Kandice a lecture on slavery on the dhow (but why not, while he’s got a captive audience? … pardon the pun), and I hope they continue to do well in the coming weeks.




4. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 2
This week: Down two places

These chicks did nothing very interesting in this episode.




5. Eric & Danielle


Last week: 6
This week: Up one place

I was amused by Eric’s joke about the “Tanzanian Devil”, particularly because Danielle had to think about whether or not he was right – and he had to tell her that he was joking. What a pair these two make! The perfect couple I don’t think! IMHO, Eric & Danielle were extremely unlucky to be dragged off their original flight to Johannesberg, because it had been Eric who’d spotted the airline’s office open upstairs, Eric who’d led the other teams up there, Eric who’d done all the talking with the airline employee, and Eric who’d arranged for tickets to be booked for himself & Danielle, Uchenna & Joyce, Dustin & Kandice and Oswald & Danny. So the fact that Eric & Danielle were the team chosen as being “one team too many” and pulled off the flight would have been VERY hard to swallow. If I’d been Eric, I’d have been arguing that one of the other teams should have been the one to go, but I guess it’s a good thing for him that he didn’t resort to that. It’s no secret that Eric is my favourite team this season (as opposed to Eric & Danielle, yuk yuk), so I hope they do well next week even though the ad features them looking very unhappy about something important.




6. Joe & Bill


Last week: 5
This week: Down one place

These guys made some stupid decisions in this episode, from choosing to stay in line rather than follow the other teams upstairs (even though the other teams never returned, so something must have been up!), to being rude about Eric & Danielle being pulled off the plane – if they’d thought about it, Eric & Danielle would have had a better chance of being on the next possible flight, so sticking with them would have been smarter than hiding from them and laughing. They only put on their thinking hats when they’d arrived at the Detour and cleverly decided to stick with their last remaining opponents, Teri & Ian, rather than do the opposite task and possibly fall way behind. This decision worked well for them, because they completed the puzzle much faster than the other team and took off. Teri & Ian never caught up, thus sealing their fate. They might has well have stopped off for fruit along the way.




7. Teri & Ian: ELIMINATED!


Last week: 3
This week: Down four places

This couple was starting to irritate me a little with their arguing about sleeping in the airport to ensure they were at the head of the line, but they were more annoying still in their decision to wait in the queue instead of going upstairs to the airline’s office and getting on the standby list. Mistake followed mistake, which compounded their delays until they were still racing a day after Charla & Mirna had finished the leg. When Joe & Bill and Teri & Ian finished the puzzle Detour task, for example, it was dawn the following day. It wasn’t too surprising that Teri & Ian went out in this leg, because they appeared quite haggard and tired throughout what ended up being a three-day leg for them. I’m sure they were happy to book into a hotel room, have a shower, and go to bed.


Channel Seven impressed everyone by showing the ad for the ‘next episode’ during the closing credits … and of course it was the ad for the episode we’d just watched. Well done, Seven. You continue to amaze us all.



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Last week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong)
Last Team: Uchenna & Joyce. (Wrong)
Yield? Yes. (Wrong)
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? Yes. Correct!
Biggest Argument: Teri & Ian. Correct!
Smartest Team: Uchenna & Joyce. (Wrong)


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Next week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny.
Last Team: Charla & Mirna.
Yield? Yes.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? Yes.
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle.
Smartest Team: Oswald & Danny.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog.


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