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You Need To Watch Your Jokes, Guy

With Rob and Amber gone, Oswald and Danny are now the leaders. At least literally, and perhaps figuratively as well (even if no one else realizes it). I love their easy-going style, and think it will get them far in the race.

Leaving Mastil de A.R.A. General Belgrano, Argentina in first place, they find that they have to take a taxi to the base of the Martial Mountain chain, ride a chair lift, and hike half a mile to the Martial Glacier. There they have to use an avalanche beacon (similar to a GPS device) to search the glacier for another beacon buried in the snow, which is their next clue.

If Oswald and Danny have any weaknesses, it is physical tasks, and this doesn't bode well for them. I hope it doesn't hurt their standing much in the race.

Unfortunately, the chair lift doesn't open until 8:00am the following morning, and by then, other teams could catch up, so Joe and Bill took the lead. Though they are a bit noisy about how good they are (and usually they aren't), in this case they actually retrieved the clue before other teams even made it to the glacier. They found that they needed to travel some 7000 miles to Maputo, Mozambique, and teams need to book travel through a travel agent (apparently they cannot do so at an airport.

I often wonder if the clues tell them this, or if they just have to know which countries allow them to get their tickets at the airport. That would be helpful information, but at the same time, it would make the race a lot more interesting if teams went to the airport, and then found they had to go to the travel agent. Anyway, back to the race.

Dustin and Kandice, who missed a marker in the Petrohue, Chile leg, missed their clue here. I swear they are turning into Teri and Ian (who missed the route marker in the last episode). The only other real difficulty on the glacier was Oswald and Danny, who had a devil of a time figuring out the beacon, as they lost the signal altogether, and left the glacier in last place.

At least they have a sense of humor, remarking "If you get caught in an avalanche, never come look for Danny and Oswald to get you out". I love these guys. In the end, it didn't really matter, since everyone made the same flight for Maputo.

Once in Africa, teams had to choose a marked car with a driver and make their way to the Apopo Training Field where they would fid their next clue. On the way there, Eric decides to play a joke on Joe and Bill by pretending to pass them, but they don't really like the joke.

Arriving at the training field, they find that it is closed. When they opened, teams find themselves faced with a Roadblock, where one team member had to use a rat to find a race marker above a deactivated land mine. The rat ran along a rope, and when it gives the signal, the mine technician digs to get the clue. Where do they get these ideas (or the trained rats, for that matter)?

Joe's rat found the mine almost instantly, and they received the clue to drive back to Maputo to find Praca dos Trabalhadores, a building designed by architect Gustave Eiffel. There, they meet a Detour, where teams must choose between Pamper and Porter.

In Pamper, teams had to travel half a mile to the Maputo Central Market, choose a nail polish kit and convince people to pay them to paint their nails, which in Maputo is a job usually performed by men. Teams needed to earn at least 30 metecais, about one U.S. dollar, to receive their next clue. In Porter, teams made their way two miles to Market de Janet, where they would use their bare hands to fill 10 large 45-pound bags with coal, and sew each of them shut. Then, teams had to carry one of the ten heavy bags to a specified address where the owner would hand them their next clue.

Thinking that men would not be painting nails (a bit odd, knowing them), Joe and Bill took off to shovel coal, and Oswald and Danny were hot on their tail. Charla and Mirna, who arrived at the Roadblock in last place, made it to the Detour in third place when other teams became lost in the city. They decided to paint nails, and rapidly finished the task. In fact, they did it so quickly that they didn't even know they had enough money until a local resident counted the money for them - so they could have finished even faster!

Opening their clue, they were given instructions to head for the Pit Stop at Fortaleza, a fort completed in 1781 (it is also the oldest building in Maputo). The cousins easily made it in first place, earning themselves a trip to Aruba on their first ever first-place finish.

The teams bagging coal rapidly slipped, as Dustin and Kandice and even Teri and Ian slipped ahead of them by painting nails, so the order of finish changed rapidly. Uchenna and Joyce finished their coal before Eric and Danielle, but they lost the lead when they couldn't find the house to deliver it, and ended up at the mat last.

• Charla and Mirna are amazingly still in this, but I can't imagine they will be for long.


• Dustin and Kandice keep hanging on as well, and never seem far out of it.


• Teri and Ian keep surprising me, but they won't be around much longer.


• Oswald and Danny are the sleepers here, keep your eyes on them.


• Joe and Bill just don't have what it takes.


• Eric and Danielle argue way too much, they will be out of it.


• Uchenna and Joyce have won already, and don't have the fire.

Luckily for Uchenna and Joyce that this was a non-elimination leg. They were close, but they would have been gone. Next time, they have to finish first, or risk a 30-minute penalty. I'm not sure what I think of that rule. Frankly, I'm still wondering why they aren't allowed to ask for money. I'm thinking that people were giving the producers a hard time - rich Americans, asking poor countries for money or something.

I still like Oswald and Danny, even though they slipped. They went from the front to the back to the front to the middle. It's obvious they can do well if they concentrate, but if they get flustered, they can falter badly. As a follow-up, I'll say that I like Dustin and Kandice. They have their faults, but they are consistently good.