I'm back after my short break. For those who didn't know, I was in deepest, darkest Africa, battling a sudden infestation of camels and mad, crazy chickens. Thankfully, we destroyed them before Lynn and Alex could arrive and actually be right about something.
In The Jungle, the Joburg Jungle Teams left the Pogo Club in Boingy Aires and were told to fly to Johannesburg. That's where the pronunciation fun began. Rob actually over pronounced it, because 'Yohannes' is technically right. However, this is South Africa, land of the lazy pronunciation, where we have Howt Bay and Blowburg. So Rob technically gave us too much credit.
They were given $217 for this leg of the race. When taking foreign exchange rates into account, one can calculate that the amount of Rands they had was ZERO, because they were given dollars, remember? Try to keep up with me.
I'm not 100% sure why everyone was so excited about going to Joburg. It's a totally crap place. Uchenna didn't think so, mumbling on and on about the 'Lost City'. Dude, what? That's a casino. Get a grip, and maybe an atlas. Next thing he'll start thinking that Sol Kerzner is the president and that golf greens are really how the grass grows down here.
Joyce was equally ecstatic at the exotic-sounding 'Johannesburg'. It's about as exotic sounding as 'MacDonalds'. Also, the plane was clearly shown landing at Cape Town International. You can' fool me, you crafty TAR guys! Even if I wouldn't be able to find Soweto with a map...
Ray Becomes a Nice Guy Ray is such a sweetheart isn't he? He bowled me over with all the nice things he had to say. Here are some of them:
- "I don't want to be a loser like those guys." Nice of him to have some goals.
- "I don't want to be a quitter... I don't know about you." It was very generous of him to acknowledge the fact that his wife may want to be a quitter.
- "I have more faith in you than you do." Which translates to "I've pretty much destroyed your self-belief, haven't I?"
- "I love you now that you actually did something and didn't suck all the time."
The Traditional Detours The detours were very appropriate to the country. The first one (the caves) was all about experiencing the underground mines, which was a vital part of Joburg's history. The second (the tribes) was all about insulting natives by mispronouncing their names and offering them trinkets in exchange for land.
I nearly crapped my pants when the Zulu chief tried to ram his
assegai into a
guy-who's-an-ass (Lynn). It would have been a really interesting twist. Hell, he could have twisted it more than once.
Lynn and Alex continued to insult their way through the Ex-Hosers and the So-Ho's, before deciding that the Pedi camp was the gayest one, and leaving. Typical Homoimperialists.
the caves were far more dramatic than the tribes. POW Ron was living the POW dream. That is: crawling through small tunnels in order to escape. Poor Gretchen concussed herself into near likeableness, giving Meredith a chance to shine with his general whininess transforming into gung-ho heroics, with only a slight whine here and there.
A South African Roadblock This week's roadblock was nearly appropriate ('Find all the non-pirated goods in this street-market') but I would have made it more challenging. I would have asked the American contestants to find the following:
- A Petrol Station
- A Pair of Takkies
- Tomato Sauce
- Aluminium
- A Taxi
But then, they would all still be here.
First Class Upgrade of the Week
Who the hell are Brian and Greg? I still can't tell them apart, let alone what they're even doing. They're so innocuous that they're doing well and no one can figure out why they're one position lower than they thought they were. The Invisible boys, that's who they are. The downside of their strategy is that if they win, no one will know.
Stowaway of the Week
Now that Patrick isn't here, I have no one to heavily crap on. No one really messed up this week, so I forego this week's Stowaway award.
Wait! Changed my mind, it's Lynn.
Postcard of the Week
Dear Kids,
Things are going well here. We're in the back of the pack, but we're not panicking much. We kinda figured we'd suck, as we came over here without our walkers and spare set of teeth. Would you mind dropping a line to mom's insurance guy and checking that everything is up to date?
No real reason...
Grampa Meredith
Snapshot of the Week
From Lynn & Alex's "Why we hate Rob & Amber" collection:
'Rob and Amber have just way too many fans..."
