Leg 6: Morocco
It's been all fun and games up until now in the 25th season of The Amazing Race. The roadblocks and detours in the first five episodes have been more bothersome than anything, but all that changed in Morocco. The seven remaining teams had to walk across a canyon in the Atlas Mountains on a perilous-looking, Temple Of Doom-style rope bridge and then zipline back to the starting point. I'm no fan of heights, so this would've been the challenge where I would've started rethinking if I was going to make it through the competition mentally intact.
This leg of the journey started out with an especially convoluted challenge involving moving bags of hay from one poorly marked place to another poorly marked place. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be so confusing for the teams, or if it was just poorly thought out on the producers' part, but it was nice watching the teams talk with each other, offering helpful tips and tricks in the name of sportsmanship.
Amy and Maya, the #SweetScientists from UW-Madison, discuss the start of the leg during a relaxing carriage ride across El Massi in Marrakesh. They’d just completed the first challenge of the day, with success.
Like I predicted last week, #SweetScientists made it through this week. But now they've finished next to last for a second week in a row. When given the detour opportunity to either set up a traditional Berber tent or milk a goat and then churn the milk into butter, the budding UW food scientists went with what they knew and headed straight toward the animal pens, where they made short work of the butter.
When a challenge requires you to make butter, it definitely helps to be working on a Ph.D. focusing on milk fat.
The #MomDaughter team of Shelley and Nici ended up in last place this week, mostly because they got lost just about every time they got behind the wheel of the Ford Fiesta. First place went to #TheDentists, Misti and Jim, who chose to make the Berber tent at the detour. The tent looked like the more difficult challenge, but they got it right on the first try.
This leg marks the halfway point of the season. Here's hoping that our "directionally challenged" #SweetScientists stay on course in the next episode, which is set in Italy. The show promises "insane" challenges.
The upcoming episode is titled "Pretty Fly for a Food Scientist." So far, none of the titles have pertained to teams that have been sent home, so I expect Amy and Maya to make the cut this Friday.
Keep up with the #SweetScientists and view images of them racing on the team's Facebook page.
