THE RACE
From St. Petersburg, teams have to fly to Muscat, Oman. Things start off really badly for Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, who oversleep and are about two hours late to the pit stop to get their destination directions. But they must have some magical pixie dust; the pair was able to catch a flight that left 10 minutes after most of the others. Plus, their plane got in early, so they caught up. "No one has outright beat us. It really has been us being careless that has not allowed us to not finish where we potentially could," Peter Pan says.
In Oman, racers must go to the Burj Al Mubkharah, where a man assigned each a time when they would have to climb a tower for the next clue. All of the times are the following morning, so the teams camp outside near the tower. When they wake up, Peter Pan takes Tinkerbell on a walk along the Arabian Sea and he gets down on a knee and whips out the ring of his mother, who died when he was in college. "You've come into my life and done so many amazing things and taught me so much. I couldn't see spending my life with anybody else other than you," he says and asks her to marry him. She says yes.
Next, racers have to drive themselves to Jebel Shams, the highest mountain in Oman. At the base, a safety driver is ready to take 'em to the top for the clue. During the trip, we learn that tatted guy isn't only nasty to his girlfriend but people in general. "I don’t like like to make new friends," he says. "I can’t wait till you watch yourself," his girlfriend says.
Tatted girl gets directions from a local and she relays them to one of the home shopping hosts. "You have no common sense in your whole body," tatted guy says. "They are probably laughing at your dumb ass right now."
ROADBLOCK
Somehow Peter Pan and Tinkerbell arrive first to Oman's Grand Canyon, where a racer has to rappel down 500 feet and then find a ring that's hidden inside a Arabian lamp. To make it harder, the area is strewn with hundreds of lamps. Heights-phobic hairdresser was not happy about rappelling down the canyon, but she did it relatively quickly. Peter Pan isn't afraid of heights, but he couldn't help but feel scared. "This is freakin' crazy. Holy cow," he says during his task.
Next up is Nizwa, where racers must find a sculpture of a stack of books. Peter Pan and Tinkerbell get out of the mountain first with hairy and the hairdresser are on their tail. The tatted couple are in third, but they get a flat right before they heading to Nizwa. The docs and Ms. Kentucky fall behind because both relied on maps for directions, which got them all confused, while the other racers asked locals. "You just hate to go out of the race with something like this," Ms. Kentucky says about the map mess-up.
DETOUR
In this detour, teams must choose water table or wedding table. For water table, teams must pump water from a deep underground well. Once they fill a water truck, they have to find the designated house and deliver the water. For the latter, teams visit an Arab market to buy 25 frozen chickens and other ingredients for maqbous, a traditional wedding soup that's supposed to bring health and virility.
All of the teams choose water table. It's a tight race between Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and the hair couple. But hairy and the hairdresser luck out; a local offers to show them how to get to the house, which turns out to be his cousin's.
After water delivery, teams must then drive to Muttrah Souq, a Muscat market, where they must find a vendor selling frankincense. Then they have to scour the market for the famous Ali Baba to exchange the frankincense for their next clue. The tatted couple are told to bring the frankincense to "Ali Baba in the souk," but they mistake it for "Ali Baba in the suit." Lucky for them, a native directs them to the right guy.
PIT STOP
The pit stop is Al Alam Palace. Hairy and the hairdresser arrive first, but they are slapped with a 30-minute penalty because they had a cabbie lead them to the pit stop. That leaves an opening for sleepyheads Peter Pan and Tinkerbell to snag first and a trip to Belize, a nice engagement gift. In second are hairy and the hairdresser and the tatted couple in third.
OUSTED
It's a close finish between the docs and Ms. Kentucky and pops, but the docs edge them out.
NEXT WEEK
Racers go to Bangladesh and encounter a TAR first: the double U-turn.
Related Stories:
· The Amazing Race [Official Site]
· Amazing Race Coverage [Jaunted]
[Photos: CBS]
