bribery pays off

I can’t really decide how I feel about Team Survivor (aka Rob & Amber) on TAR yet. I think I have a really complicated love-hate relationship with them. They drive me nuts, the same way they do to the other teams, but at the same time, I kind of take pleasure in the fact that they are doing so well despite all the other teams hating on them.

So this week, teams have to go from last week’s pit stop in Cuzco, Peru to Arequipa via a 10 hour bus ride. They get to the bus station and Team Survivor find out from a local which bus is the fastest and then bribe him not to tell that same information to any of the other teams. The other teams are pretty peeved when they find out and I probably would be too, but since I’m not part of the game, I think it’s ingenious. However, all the teams end up on the same bus anyway, so their little plan didn’t quite work out the way they wanted. suckers.

The blondies team, Heidi & Megan (who I absolutely cannot distinguish one from the other) bond with the team of brothers, Greg & Brian (who I also cannot distinguish from one another). I was hoping maybe they’d pair up and go make out in the back of the bus or something, but no such luck. Or maybe they did and the AR staff chose to edit it out.

Rob bribed the bus driver to only open the door at the front of the bus when it arrives in Arequipa, which totally pisses off the teams sitting at the back of the bus, and once again, it kind of cracks me up how sneaky Rob is being. I’ve almost forgiven him for not knowing how to open the trunk of the car in the first episode.

Teams had to convince people on the streets of Arequipa to get their shoes shined, and I noticed most of them got shoe polish all over the person’s sock when they were trying to shine the shoes. Joyce, the wannabe Kim from TAR 5’s winning Chip and Kim team, couldn’t get anyone to let her shine their shoe, so she ended up standing on a street corner screaming “SHOE SHINE!!!” for god knows how long. I wish they had a time counter on the screen sometimes, like they do on 24, so I can see just how long some of these tasks are taking people.

Once they’ve shined shoes they have to fly to Santiago, Chile. For some reason, that place reminds me of “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?” Does anyone remember that game? I think I used to always look for her in Santiago, Chile when I used to play that on my computer. But in any case, now they’re in Chile and have to either haul books from a bookstore to the Library of Congress or go shopping for soup ingredients in a marketplace with their own money. Maybe it’s just me, but you would think its smarter to save your money and do the task that doesn’t cost anything. Well, too bad Patrick and his mom didn’t think like me, because they ended up having to beg for money to be able to afford the ingredients. What baffles me the most about this is that they already had to beg for money to ride the tram right before this part of the race. What, did they think money was going to magically appear in their fanny packs on their way to the market? That maybe while they were on the tram, a kind stranger snuck some money into their pockets?

In the end, Team Survivor prevailed and arrived at the pit stop in Cerro Santa Lucia first, winning a trip to the Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. As if they haven’t already won enough. Team Blondies and Team Brothers are the last two teams to arrive, with Greg & Brian just barely edging out the blondies and sending their blondie girlfriends home. I guess there won’t be any making out after all.

Next week on TAR: Team Survivor steals someone’s cab, somebody gets a flat tire, and one team drives in the wrong direction for two hours. sucks for them.