Last week on The Amazing Race, teams took the bus from the starting line to LAX and continued to use public transport of one type or another the whole leg. Well, except for Brent and Caite, and you know what happened to them. You don't? Well, go read Molaholic's summary and then come back.

OK, continuing on...Jordan and Jeff were the first team to arrive at 3:21pm, so they get to leave the Pit Stop at 3:21am. They must travel back to Santiago and take the bus to Puerto Varas. They hop in a cab and proceed to intelligently direct their Spanish-speaking cabbie to the bus terminal:

Them: "Bus? Bus?"
Cabbie: *blank look*
Them: "Bus? Bus? You know? You take us?"
Cabbie: *blank look*

The cabbie puts the car in gear and drives, probably just to shut them up. They get to the bus terminal and discover a bunch point - it doesn't open until 5:00am. Now that it doesn't matter what time the other teams arrived at, we don't find out. And you know, here on my notepad, I had written out the teams in the order they had arrived so that I could write down the times they left at. If we had found out what times they arrived at, I could comment now on things like:

- how much of a lead Team Big Brother had.
- how spread out the teams were.
- how much the bunching saved Jody and Shannon, however temporarily.

But no.

Carol and Brandy take it back that they called Jordan and Jeff "Ken and Barbie", since they came in first last leg. Carol and Brandy are shown sniping about Caite wearing a tiara. Carol and Brandy decide they're going to make an alliance with Joe and Heidi. Only the alliance bit concerns us here, since it means that Joe and Heidi save a spot for them in line at the bus terminal. As a result, only Joe and Heidi and Carol and Brandy are on the first bus to Puerto Varas.

Steve and Allie, Monique and Shawne, Dan and Jordan and Louie and Mike are on the second bus. Jody and Shannon are on the last bus. They make brave statements about not giving up.

Meanwhile, the cowboys discover through a local that they could head over to Temuco and catch a connecting bus to Puerto Varas. Jeff actually thinks of trying a connecting city to see if they can get to Puerto Varas faster. He actually thinks of it. Brent and Caite tag along. All three of these teams head to Temuco. They will connect with 2 different buses, the cowboys' bus to Puerto Varas leaving the station at 7:00, whereas the young, famous(ish) teams' bus will leave at 6:30. Ha! They have a head start on the cowboys! Well, think the cowboys, let's see if we can get on that bus too. But they decide they don't want to when they learn that the other bus is leaving from another terminal in a different part of the city. Teams Shiny Happy People 1 and 2 finally figure this out at 6:33 and try to make a 10-minute taxi ride in -3 minutes. They fail. Then they try to make it back to catch the same bus as the cowboys and fail again. The cowboys chortle. It doesn't really matter, though, because the Shiny teams get a bus that leaves at 1:00am. They make it to Puerto Varas ahead of two of the other buses anyway.

Once in Puerto Varas, teams take a marked (standard) car and head over to what was probably meant to be a bunch point: a marked path leading to boats that will take them to the next cluebox. The path doesn't open until 7:00am. The cowboys "snuggle up" in the car.

7:00 arrives, but none of the other teams do, so Jet and Cord head along the path and get their next clue. The are directed to a Detour! The choices are: Llama Adoration or Condor Consternation.

Llama Adoration

Teams must choose a llama and then dress it up in a blanket and scarf. This is a one of those tasks where the locals watch you and laugh. I like those.

Condor Consternation
Believe it or not, they'll be walking on air. Teams will dress themselves up in this task...as condors. Well, actually, they put on condor feet and then stick their heads through holes in a huge condor kite-thing. Phil tells us they will soar "majestically" off a dock and into a lake to get their clue off a buoy.

Only two teams do this: Team Big Brother and Team Beauty Queen, so let's summarize them right away. Both teams look stupid. Majestic music swells in the background as they run to the edge of the dock. Their rapid and unceremonious decent into icy water is accompanied by the Trombone Slide of Shame. That's enough of them.

Dan and Jordan get lost on the way to the Detour. They cannot drive stick, despite some joking about Jordan's sexuality. Har har. In fact, they can't even get the car in reverse, so one of them has to get out and push the car so they can back up.

Jody and Shannon continue to be shown remarking that they're not going to give up and maybe some other team won't know how to drive standard. Oh, maybe there is hope for them after all!

Eventually all the teams get to the Detour.

Anyway, llama-dressing highlights include (in no particular order):

- Joe getting kicked by a llama.
- Louie and Mike cornering their chosen llama with long tree branches.
- Joe and Heidi giving up trying to find a nice, standing-up llama and dressing a sleeping one to the applause of the locals.
- a llama just walking up to Jet and Cord, who call it their friend and dress it.
- Jordan (banana - credit: Mole) doing a striptease for the locals.
- the captioning on my tape quoting either Dan or Jordan as saying he is probably "allege ick" to llamas.

Steve and Allie and Monique and Shawne were in there somewhere, too.

Jet and Cord finish the Detour before any of the other teams see them. They speculate that the other teams don't even know that they're in first. Their clue tells them to go to Onces Bella Vista farm.

At the farm, teams discover a Roadblock! The clue tells them that "It's time to make the Kuchen." And look! The word "Kuchen" is capitalized, just like German nouns should be. Neat! Phil tells us that there is a large community of German immigrants in Chile, which was established in 1945. Anyway, Racers will dash about the farm to Collect Ingredients (an inspired Roadblock name, if ever I saw one) to make Kuchen, a traditional German pastry. The ingredients are: a baker's dozen of eggs, flour, sugar, a plate of butter and milk, which needs to be expressed from a cow.

Cord gets everything together, using his garbage bag hat cover to collect the eggs and milking the cow like a pro. As an oom pah pah band plays in the background, the cowboys read that they must now travel to the Pit Stop at Gruta de la Virgen. Because I don't care for buiding drama, I'll just tell you now that they get there first and win sailboats.

The other teams get to the Roadblock eventually. Louie and Mike get lost, though. They're complacent about it, believing that other teams are behind them. They run into Team Big Brother, who are lost looking for the Pit Stop, which they think is a statue, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Because it took me so long to even see this episode, I'm going to steal my own idea and pare the Roadblock down into highlights too. Cord, Carol, Heidi, Brent, Jeff, Steve, Monique, Jordan, Mike and Jody do the Roadblock.

- Mike slips and falls in the kitchen.
- Jeff says "Muchas gracias" to the German baker.
- Caite spits and Carol thinks that's classless. Not at all like gossipping.
- Mike can't find the pantry.
- Jody gets kicked in the head, but just keeps on swimming.

All the teams get to the Pit Stop, which is not a statue.

Finish Order:

1. Jet and Cord
2. Joe and Heidi
3. Carol and Brandy
4. Brent and Caite
5. Monique and Shawne
6. Jordan and Jeff
7. Steve and Allie
8. Dan and Jordan
9. Louie and Mike

Alas, Team Grandma/Grandkid rolls in last. There was no hope for them after all. They are eliminated. Jody says that of all her grandchildren, she admires Shannon most. The other grandkids will be certain to appreciate this, I'm sure. They plan their next big adventure.

Next week: Carol and Brandy get snippy with each other, instead of just snipping about the other teams. Looking forward to it!

Again, sorry this is late!

• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,jbug, 03:35 PM, 02-24-10
• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,Belle Book, 04:40 PM, 02-24-10
• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,MissMyth, 05:42 PM, 02-24-10
• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,sica077, 08:39 PM, 02-25-10
• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,Molaholic, 10:04 PM, 02-26-10
• RE: TAR16.2 Summary: Bus? Bus? You know?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 07:42 PM, 02-28-10

"allege ick"

my close captioning does stuff like that too

nicely done

Nice job!

Great summary Seana! Especially with all your VCR woes.

Very nice, indeed!

"Teams Shiny Happy People 1 and 2 finally figure this out at 6:33 and try to make a 10-minute taxi ride in -3 minutes." Love it!

Great job, even with the tape faux paux. You're setting the bar awfully high.

Yes, nice job ... I enjoyed reading too.