This leg of the Amazing Race started in Liechtenstein, a tiny country with the second highest gross domestic product per person in the world. No one really knows it exists, unless you are disgustingly wealthy and don’t want to live in Dubai.
The first task was straightforward: “measure Liechtenstein.” One member of each team was asked to traverse the itsy bitsy country on an itsy bitsy scooter. After riding through the Alps looking like a real life Looney Tunes character, each rider was required to estimate, in kilometers, the length of the country.
Justin arrived first and gave the correct answer: 22 kilometers. Jen overheard Justin and repeated the number.Then both Justin and Jen met their teammates at Gutenberg castle and zoomed off via train to Zermatt, Switzerland, a city at the base of the Matterhorn, which is a really tall and famous mountain in the Alps. It is a popular destination for mountaineers, but if you don’t think that climbing 14,692 ft to the summit sounds very fun, it was also recreated in Disneyland as an amusement park ride.
Meanwhile, the other teams played catch-up. Before he hopped the train to Zermatt, in an act of benevolence, Justin told Flight Time the correct length of Liechtenstein, and Flight Time in turn told Gary. If this were the Serengeti, Justin would be the lion, and the rest of the contestants would be jackals, waiting for the lion to bring down prey and then scurrying in to snatch off a piece of hard earned munchies. Vyxsin, as usual, flipped out but managed to compose herself enough to finish the short ride and give the correct distance. Jet somehow took a wrong turn and had to start over again. Come on, Jet. The country is the size of your living room. It’s like taking the wrong turn on the way to pick up the remote control. The mistake proved to be disastrous.
Zev and Justin and Kisha and Jen were already on the detour challenge. Last week the teams had to choose between a food challenge and a hard labor challenge. No one — including Jev/Justin and Kisha/Jen — who attempted the food challenge managed to complete it. This week the teams also had to choose between a food challenge and a hard labor challenge, so naturally, the two frontrunners decided to go for round two of gluttony. Some people never learn.
The food challenge was to eat a large pot of fondue, and the other challenge was to deliver twenty suitcases to various hotels and present 20 tickets upon the completion of the challenge. Realizing the pot of cheese was too formidable an opponent, Kisha and Jen gave up the cheese eating less than a quarter of the way through and ran off to deliver suitcases.
Zev and Justin powered through the meal, groaning and belching. Justin puked up half the fondue three quarters of the way through, and as he slumped over in pain, Zev provided encouragement by barking at him angrily, because that’s what friends are for. Eating the worst meal ever paid off, because it put Zev and Justin in first place on the way to the pit stop in front of the Alps. Kisha and Jen came in second, the squabbling Goths third and Gary and Mallory fourth.
On the way to the pit stop was a double U-turn, which none of the first four teams opted to use, but due to a blunder in which the Globetrotters managed to lose two tickets in the suitcase delivery challenge, which allowed the Cowboys to close in on them, the Globetrotters U-turned the Cowboys to save themselves. This solidified their fifth place finish and knocked Jet and Cord out of the race. The Cowboys turned around and slowly ate their last meal, a steaming pot of fondue, before being eliminated and sent back home to the cattle ranch.
