After completing the glacier task, teams had to fly 7,000 miles to the town of Maputo in Mozambique. Any plane tickets have to be purchased through travel agents as the airport can't sell them. The show has back-up tickets which would get them in at 3 PM if teams cannot obtain earlier flights. But all the teams, including the lagging ChaChas, managed to get on the same flight and their arrival time was 9:40 AM.
Once in Maputo, the teams had to get in marked cars with drivers and head to APOPO Training Field. Again, there was a bunching point and Eric called the Guidos "freaks." It was there that they faced a Roadblock (a task only one member of a team can do) and one of the coolest ones I've ever seen. Rats! Oh, I'm not talking the rats running around KFC/Taco Bell in the Village. I'm talking working rats. These rats have been trained to detect explosive landmines and work with trainers. It's fascinating to read about and gives us a whole new insight into a much-detested animal. Well, I never detested them. I just don't want them in my abode... or where I eat. Pet rats have always been okay with me.
Not only did I think the challenge was fun and really interesting, but Charla's rat was more interested in grooming for the cameras than finding the landmine/clue. The name of the Roadblock was "Who Smells a Rat?" I couldn't help but compare Mirna to them each time they showed her. During the task, one of the ChaChas promised their rat, Nelson, that if he finds the clue, "We'll take you to a nice lab where they'll apply make-up on you." Ian gave his Cagney impersonation, "You dirty rat."
Once the rats did their thing for the teams, they had to travel 50 miles back into Maputo, but it wasn't as easy to get to the location as they thought. The road sign must have loved the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. "Some people go this way, and others go this way." The road sign indicated Maputo was either to the left or straight ahead. The teams going straight ended up lost. Or, was it the teams who went left who got lost? All I can say was one way was better than the other and shifted the dynamics of who was leading the pack.
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