Racing report
Amazing Race Season 33, Episode 10, "No room for error"
Film date: probably 2021-10-01 or 2021-10-02
The last leg ended in Thessaloniki, Greece. During the pit stop teams are flown in their chartered plane, which the teams named Big Phil, to Lisbon, Portugal. Teams are released from Santuário de Cristo Rei, just outside Lisbon, in the following groups:
Group #1 at 08:30
1. Raquel & Cayla
Group #2 at 08:45
2. Kim & Penn
2. Arun & Natalia
Group #3 at 09:00
4. Ryan & Dusty
Drive yourselves to
Fortaleza de São Filipe
in the town of Setúbal.
You have zero Euros for
this leg of the Race.
Warning: there are two
Roadblocks in this leg.
Choose wisely.
Teams must now pick up a car from the nearby parking lot and drive themselves to the old fort in Setúbal (44km). Raquel & Cayla seem to get lost immediately. They end up on a small street which turns into a flight of stairs.
"
Can I just drive down those stairs?", Raquel (she has probably seen too many movies)
Ryan & Dusty are not happy about starting last.
"
We will find one of these lambs in front of us, and we will feast", Dusty
I remember multiple teams in earlier seasons using a similar analogy and none of them have fared well.
Teams arrive to the fort in the following order:
1(+1) Kim & Penn
2(-1) Raquel & Cayla, meet Kim & Penn leaving when they get close to the fort
3(+1) Ryan & Dusty, just after #2
4(-2) Arun & Natalia, as the two teams before are about to leave
At the top of the fort teams find a sign which reads "Take in the view. Look for your next destination".
Teams must now look for a race flag which shows where their next destination is. This is a common race task and usually pretty difficult. But this time the flag is very easy to spot. The tricky part is instead to figure out how to drive to it.
"
Color blind Penn found the flag", Penn on how easy the flag was to find
The last three teams all meet up on the fort so all teams are close together here.
"
Ryan and I, the lions, went hunting, and we made a kill with Raquel & Cayla behind us, but now we are hunting for the main prize, the Cape buffalo", Dusty (followed by a roar)
The flag was located by one of the piers down in the harbor (1.7km). Teams reach it in the following order:
1(+0) Kim & Penn
2(+0) Raquel & Cayla
3(+1) Arun & Natalia
4(-1) Ryan & Dusty, took a wrong turn
Road block: Who wants to go exploring?
Teams will find nine rowing boats tied up to the pier here. They must each find one named after a famous Portuguese explorer and row it to a nearby pier. If the boat is not named after an explorer they must go back and pick another. The boat names are:
Bartolomeu Dias - explorer
Fernão de Magalhães - Portugese spelling of Magellan, explorer
Pedro Alvares Cabral - explorer
Vasco da Gama - explorer
Cristiano Ronaldo - footballer
Antón Guterres - politician and secretary general of the UN
Amália Rodrigues - actress
Fernando Pessoa - poet
Salvador Sobral - singer
These are all famous Portuguese persons but only four of them are explorers.
"
Christian Ronaldo is not", Raquel checks the names and eventually picks Bartolomeu Dias
One essential race skill, which most of these players lack, is how to row a boat. Kim figures it out fairly quickly.
"
Clearly, I don't have rowing experience. I would have been better paddling with my hands", Raquel
Raquel never gets the technique right. She sits facing forward but does get the boat moving.
Fortunately for teams they do not have to row a long distance (<100m).
Arun decides to do this road block as it does not seem to involve singing and dancing. But the task does involve rowing, and there is room for improvement when it comes to Arun's rowing technique.
"
I'm not too sure how to row this boat", Arun
Ryan picks one boat at random (not the Ronaldo boat though) and hopes for the best. His hopes are dashed by the judge and he has to row back to get a different boat.
While Ryan is doing his first run Arun is still spinning around trying to figure out how to row a boat. While he does that he spots the name Vasco Da Gama on one of the other boats and recognizes it. He knows that is a good boat. Now all he has to do is get back to the pier and switch boat. But he still can not row so while he is trying to get back to the dock Ryan returns. Ryan this time Ryan picks the Vasco Da Gama boat as he recognizes this name.
"
You took my boat", Arun is frustrated (but he knows the rules and Ryan was just faster)
Eventually Arun also figures out how to row, but by this time all other teams have left. And it turns out he has picked the wrong boat so he has to go back.
Teams complete this road block in the following order (* denotes team member doing the roadblock):
1(+0) | Kim* & Penn | (5-5) | On her first attempt |
2(+0) | Raquel* & Cayla | (7-3) | On her first attempt |
3(+1) | Ryan* & Dusty | (6-4) | On his second attempt |
4(-1) | Arun* & Natalia | (6-4) | On his second attempt, about 30 minutes after #3 |
"
I'm glad I studied in school. That was the only one I was sure of", Raquel shows that education pays off
Route info: Make your way on foot to Mercearia Confiança de Troino...
The Mercearia seems to be some sort of local museum. Teams reach it (800m) in the following order:
1(+0) Kim & Penn
2(+0) Raquel & Cayla
3(+0) Ryan & Dusty, just after #3
4(+0) Arun & Natalia, after the first two teams have left the painting
Here teams find a basket with five sardine cans. They must each choose one. At the back there is an address where teams will find a door on which they must replicate the design of the can. The designs have been outlined on the doors so "all" the teams have to do is to fill in the marked areas. The extra info also says "The Mayor will have final say on whether you were successful or not".
The doors are close to where teams pick up the sardine cans (and they may have passed the painting stations on their way to the museum). Painting them is tedious work and teams soon realize that some designs are easier to paint than others.
"
I think we picked a hard one", Penn
"
We chose the sardine can 'cause it just seemed like there wasn't as many, like, fine lines and small details", Raquel
Once teams think they are done they call the judge over to check their work. She will just tell them okay or "Not yet" and then they have to figure out by themselves what they need to improve. We as the viewer do not have to do that as their mistakes are highlighted on screen for us.
"
I think she is enjoying this", Penn about the judge after they get rejected again
"
I hear panic over there", Ryan hears Kim & Penn
"
We're gonna lose the Amazing Race'cause we can't paint", Kim is frustrated
Ryan & Dusty struggle here. Their main issue is that they need to paint their doorknob and it takes them a long time to figure this out.
Teams complete this task in the following order:
1(+1) Raquel & Cayla, on their second check
2(-1) Kim & Penn, on their third check
3(+0) Ryan & Dusty, on their 10th check
4(+0) Arun & Natalia, on their 1st check
The next route info tells teams to drive themselves to Santuário do Cabo Espichel. It also says that once they arrive they need to leave the car and bring everything with them.
When they reach their car Raquel & Cayla realize that they have lost their map. Here production inserts a shot of the missing map on the ground in front of the door they just painted. But the girls have no idea where they have lost it. This is the closest we ever get to see these two arguing. Cayla thinks she will be able to navigate without a map and Raquel think they need one.
"
I was definitely irritated", Raquel interviews later
Eventually they decide to get a new map in a gas station and that quickly solves their problem.
Teams reach the next route marker (38km) in the following order:
1(+1) Kim & Penn
2(-1) Raquel & Cayla
3(+0) Ryan & Dusty
4(+0) Arun & Natalia, after the other teams have left
Road block: "Who has to do this Roadblock?"
This is the site of an old church and in front of it is a long courtyard lined with columns. The racers must now count the columns (the correct answer is 106). The catch is that they must remain within a marked square which is close to one end of the courtyard. Once they think they have the correct number they must make their way to a monk (~300 m) and tell him their guess. They may only make one guess per trip. Once correct the monk will point to the next Pit Stop, a nearby lighthouse.
This is effectively a vision test.
"
I can't see all the way down there", Penn
After a while Penn decides to turn this into a running challenge. He does his best at counting and gets to 112. This is wrong so he goes back. He the immediately runs back to the monk and guesses 113, the next time he guesses 111 and so on.
"
I'm blind as a bat so that's fun", Penn to Cayla as they run back after guessing
Teams complete this road block in the following order (* denotes team member doing the roadblock):
1(+1) | Raquel & Cayla* | (7-4) | On her first attempt |
2(-1) | Kim & Penn* | (5-6) | On his eight attempt |
3(+0) | Ryan & Dusty* | (6-5) | On his third attempt |
4(+0) | Arun & Natalia* | (6-5) | On her first attempt |
The pit stop is at the nearby lighthouse (~800m). Raquel & Cayla take a wrong turn while they look for the path leading to it, and then the fog starts rolling in. The whole thing almost turns into a footrace between the girls and Kim & Penn. Or at least that is the way it is edited. The teams are not on the mat at the same time so either it was not as close as we are led to believe, or they held Kim & Penn just out of view so that Phil could finish speaking with Raquel & Cayla. I suspect that Kim & Penn may have seen the girls but were still several minutes behind them.
Teams reach Phil and the mat in the following order:
1(+0) Raquel & Cayla, win a trip to St. Lucia.
2(+0) Kim & Penn
3(+0) Ryan & Dusty
4(+0) Arun & Natalia, are eliminated
"
It's been really good to get closer to Nat", Arun about racing with his daughter