Televizzle.org

Can Horses Smell Fear?

Teams started off twelve hours after they arrived in Beijing, China, and they were pretty closely bunched together - less than an hour and a half separated first place team Tyler and James and the last team to depart, married couple David and Mary.

The first stage was a lengthy bus ride, and this caused two groups to emerge, as there were two buses departing two hours apart. After this ride, everyone caught up with one another as all of the remaining teams managed to get on the train leaving Erenhot, China, so it didn't make too much difference.

After arriving in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, however, things got a little hairier. The taxis to the template went a little awry, but it was after getting into their own vehicles when things really got crazy. Tyler and James had a flat tire and David and Mary got stuck - really stuck - in the mud. But everyone made it reasonably well to the Detour, where the choice was Take It Down or Fill It Up.

In Take It Down, the team has to take down the canvas walls and roof of a tent, fold them properly and pack the materials onto a camel. In Fill It Up, the team instead has to take a cart pulled by a "hynik" down to the river, fill four metal jugs with water, return to the nomad camp and fill a barrel with the water they collected. Once the barrel is filled to the designated line, a they get their next clue.

Most teams took Fill It Up, but Peter and Sarah elected to try Take It Down - at first. Then they switched. After their hynik took off (twice), they switched back, and it worked out well for them. Other teams seemed to do well by sticking to their selected Detour. Meanwhile, other teams had more problems with their vehicles - usually because problems getting them started. Luckily most were able to get them started again by using a hand crank.

The final stop was a Roadblock where one of the team members had to shoot a flaming arrow into a target and set it on fire. After they did this they could run to the mat and meet Phil to check in for the Pit Stop.

Tyler and James and Peter and Sarah arrived at nearly the same time, but Peter was able to hit the target on the second try, before Tyler could even get a shot off, so they were first at the Pit Stop. Tyler did get the target before long, so they were in second place. The other teams came in in relatively uneventful fashion:

• Peter and Sarah
• Tyler and James
• Duke and Lauren
• Tom and Terry
• Dustin and Kandice
• Rob and Kimberly
• David and Mary
• Erwin and Godwin
• Lyn and Karlyn
• Kellie and Jamie

It wasn't much of a surprise that the cheerleaders Kellie and Jamie were left out at the end. They just took too many wrong turns to pull it out. The only suspense was whether it would be them or single mothers Lyn and Karlyn. The top of the leaderboard didn't change much, and I don't suspect it will.