Episode Report Card M. Giant: B- | 2 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT So Near and Yet Safari
By M. Giant | Season 22 | Episode 7 | Aired on 03.31.2013
Chuck drives up to the village, the car hitting a bump so hard that the steering wheel is briefly shaken out of his hand. Wynona sees the two cars already there and correctly guesses which two teams are ahead of them. At least for now; Winnie is still carefully navigating the boat out into the river, trying to make sure she's going upstream. Of course, an Amazing Arrow sign sticking out of the water in front of them helps. Now the tricky part: turning. I have no idea how the physics of that are even supposed to work. It's not like a pole can provide a lot of torque.
Wynona has to do another Roadblock to try to catch up with Chuck, so she goes chasing after the goats while Chuck secures the first one in the boat. Pam & Winnie can see them from out in the river, because their boat keeps trying to steer itself back downstream. Now just imagine how much harder this would be in a river that actually looks like its moving. Wynona puts her second goat down in the canoe, thinking it'll sit down docilely and wait for her to take her seat, but it runs for it, baaing all the way and forcing the local goat farmers to chase it down for her. They seem amused by it, fortunately. Once both goats are situated, Wynona struggles with poling the boat out, which she ends up doing from a crouch because she's afraid to fall in. This is not going to go well.
Mona & Beth arrive at the clue box, and Beth agrees to do it, somewhat reluctantly. Joey & Meghan are lost, however, as they're driving down a dirt road the peters out to nothing, until some kids run up waving them down and they decide to turn around. At first I think these are kids from the crowd near the clue box, but no, they're just random kids who live pretty much anywhere in Botswana. Max sees a sign informing him that he and Katie are 10 kilometers from Maun and says they're doing good. But she's still pissy enough about the length of the car-hunt at the beginning of the leg that she says, "I think the correct term is doing well." Someone's not even trying to get along.
At the police station, Jennifer finds someone who tells her where she can exchange cash in town. Except she can't leave Caroline because of that rule about partners staying together, so she has no choice but to give a hundred U.S. dollars to this total stranger and beg him to come back with pula. "This is a big mistake, which might cost us the race," Jennifer tells us, explaining that the cops are keeping Caroline as collateral and all she can do is hope that the guy will come back. "This is such a nightmare," she frets. Well, on the plus side, maybe the guy will be able to get to the money place more quickly than she and Caroline could have? And then take their cash and run for Namibia? "The first speeding ticket in my life cost us the race," Jennifer smiles ruefully after the ad break, still hoping the dude is going to come back.