Ah, now it's beginning to feel like The Amazing Race! Even though they didn't cover a ton of territory, the challenges were more adventurous and my edge-of-my-seat adrenalin rush came back towards the end of the episode.

Yeah, I know it's purely editing which made the ending so intense, but it could have been either team racing for that Pit Stop eliminated. For all I know, they could have been an hour apart. But that's the magic of TV, right?

"Nine teams remain. Who will be eliminated tonight?" I noted that Phil said "tonight," not "next." To me, that indicated it wasn't quite time for a non-elimination leg. Next week we'll have to see how he phrases it.

The teams left the Valley of the Dead (the last Pit Stop) in the order in which they had arrived. Rob and Amber, the first in last week's leg, left at 11:39 PM. David and Mary, the last in the leg, left at 12:55 AM. So, the lead time has been cut some, but it's still rather substantial. They had to drive four miles to San Pedro, then board flights for Puerto Montt, a port town in Chile.

Once again, we had the inevitable all-too-familiar airport scramble for tickets segment. Didn't I just say last week that these are getting way too tired? I think I did. A few things to note about this segment, though — Rob and Amber thought to go online to secure tickets for the earliest flight before the counter opened. While David and Mary declared "no more friends" after being burnt by Mirna and Shmirna... er, Charla, Teri and Ian and the Beauty Queens (Dustin and Kandice) decided they'd work together. Other teams also worked together, manning the empty counters and planning to buy tickets for others.

At the airport, Charla eavesdropped on other teams finding out they were on an earlier flight. She pulled the "I can't see over the counter, excuuuuse me" bit and tried to horn in on Teri and Ian's counter transaction. Teri bristled and I loved it! "Do not talk to my person!" Mirna called Ian "the King of Rude" and said she learned her rudeness from him when he called her on her behavior. Aha, a brouhaha!

The teams were soon on their way, with Rob and Amber in the lead. Rob took an unexpected turn which brought out a good Team Guido line (one of a couple tonight) — "Rob is not Jesus." Well, he may as well be for the purpose of this race. Is Romber unbeatable? It turned out they took a wrong turn, but soon corrected and were back on track unlike so many who roam so lost for so long.

The Roadblock had one member of each team collecting flounder from a pool and loading them into a holding tank. Danielle freaked out, as did Mirna when she later arrived. Amber, on the other hand, didn't hesitate much although she wasn't a happy fisher. Rob brought up a good point about the "encouragement" Eric was giving Danielle. I found it insulting, too. Yay for Rob for noticing and commenting on it!