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"When the cow kicked me in the head..." – Jody, after...well...a cow kicked her in the head

I hope you enjoyed the mandatory rest period after the last leg. Since it's so early in the season and there was not much memorable about the eliminated Adrian and Dana team, we don't get to reminisce about them. Let's jump right into the next leg of the race.

Team Big Brother Jordan and Jeff were the first on the mat in Valparaiso, Chile, so they are the first ones to get a rather convoluted set of travel instructions for their initial clue in this leg. Here goes (deep breath): Teams must travel by bus back to Santiago, Chile, then board another bus to Puerto Varas, next drive themselves to a lakeside hotel, then take a boat to Isla Margarita, and finally hike up a path to their clue. So much travel and changing modes of transportation are usually signs that the playing field is about to be leveled.

Team Big Brother gets to the bus station around 3:30 a.m. and sees that it doesn't open until 5 a.m., so all the teams will be there by that point. I would like to thank the producers now for actually editing out the unnecessary departure shots of the other teams. On the heels of last week's lean footage of the tasks where some teams weren't even shown, this season seems to be striving to mirror the quick pace of the last season and I am all for that.

The teams have the chance to mill around the station and wait for the one bus that they all have tickets for. During this down time, brothers Dan and Jordan assess that because cowboys Jet and Cord are running an independent race that they won't be around much longer. The cowboys appear to be unsurprised that people underestimate them just because of the stereotype of being a hick.
This also gives Team South Carolina Brent and Caite of Miss Teen South Carolina fame the chance to speculate that the gay couple of Carol and Brandy don't like them because one of them sarcastically asked another team "Where's her tiara?" This is nicely timed because at the beginning of this leg Caite is wearing a ridiculous, sparkling silver headband that is very tiara-like. May be she was slyly giving wearing it as a dig to their comment about her but probably not. It's likely just an unfortunate accessory choice.

We are also treated to the first formal attempt at an alliance this season. Carol and Brandy zero in on married couple Joe and Heidi as their potential alliance partners because, "He's a really strong competitor." We'll have to take their word for that one because even though they finished in the middle of the pack previously, Joe and Heidi were completely edited out for one of the tasks. While I completely understand the purpose and merits of having an alliance on shows like Survivor and Big Brother, they've always struck me as extraneous on the Amazing Race with no real purpose, because the race is pretty straightforward. But that might just be me.

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