Flights
Sometimes you need to follow your instinct, and Charla and Mirna were rewarded for their risk by reaching the boat docks first. Everyone else played it safe and ended up arriving much later. But more on that in a bit. It was a nightmarish time for most of the Racers in Johannesburg, and some – like Danielle – didn’t take things very well. I can totally understand that. But since I’m a veteran standby passenger, I can tell you that there were no shenanigans here.
The first thing you should know that despite a flight being “closed” (airline jargon meaning that seats for ticketed passengers are no longer held), a standby passenger CAN be booted off a flight if a ticketed passenger (due to a delayed flight, etc.) arrives before the doors close. You should also know that you can be denied boarding or booted off a plane for any reason whatsoever, so simply being on the plane means nothing until those doors have closed and the plane is pulling out from the terminal.
So I offer this advice – be nice to the gate agents. Chances are that, if they remember you (in a good way), they are less inclined to do things like bump you from a flight.
Overall, I think that this is the first time in a long while that flights have helped determine who would be eliminated. And it shows that you should always be looking for that edge, instead of staying put. Had the Guidos and Teri/Ian joined the other teams at the SAA office, perhaps it would be Uchenna and Joyce or the Beauty Queens taking a trip to sequesterville
Boats
Now this is where some shenanigans possibly happened. Whether you like or dislike Charla and Mirna, you have to admit that they got royally screwed as the dhow operators let them know that they’d have to wait until the next day to take a trip, due to inclement weather. Of course, the helpful cameraman looked upwards to show a beautiful day. Mind you, it’s about 50km to Zanzibar from the mainland, so… who knows for certain? We do know that had the water been rougher, it’s likely that Charla wouldn’t be the only one feeding the fishes.
Detour – Solve It or Schlep It
From the way things were set up, Solving the puzzle was faster, but it’s likely that head-to-head, Teri and Ian finished the puzzle in about the same amount of time as the Beauty Queens. No surprise that the Queens took the physical task – we saw last season that they don’t shy away from getting their hands dirty on a task.
The Guidos took the interesting tack of staying with Teri and Ian on the Detour, reasoning that they could keep an eye on them, and no doubt trusting in their ability to beat them in a footrace. Lucky for them, they didn’t need to try to prove themselves right.
Roadblock
This was apparently not a tough roadblock. It was more about technique or luck to break the mask. And for Eric and Danielle, luck was probably welcomed. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how that mask fell down.
Well, we get a two-hour episode next week (they’d better not be joking), which as I’m sure you’re thinking, must be a superleg. Which is probably good for the Guidos, as they find themselves in a familiar position – about 24 hours behind the top teams.
