[Cont’d...]
The Coconut palace in Manila - this structure was built mainly from Coconut trees (around 70% of the entire building). Former first lady Imelda Marcos ordered this palace to be built with the intention of having Pope John Paul II stay here during his 1981 visit to our country. The pontiff however, declined this offer, after he found the structure to be too showy. This palace served as the eleventh pit stop in a race around the world between contestants of the Amazing Race’s fifth season.
As the teams were taking their much-needed rest in the palace, tension started to mount a bit (as expected) between Chip & Kim, and Colin & Christie. The dating couple were mad at the married parents after the latter played the yield card against them in the just concluded leg, forcing them to come in last and lose all their money in the process. Chip was trying to justify his actions by saying that it was the only way they would have had a shot of beating the dating couple. And maybe he had a point. After all, Colin & Christie came in first in no less than six out of the first ten legs of the race, and at one point had an amazing seven hour lead over the rest of the pack, a lead which they lost through no fault of their own (operating hours of places where clues can be found, and unavailability of flights caused them to lose this lead).
Having no money, Colin & Christie went around the palace asking for help from tourists, and were very fortunate enough to find lots of good Samaritans. One of the tourists even gave them twenty dollars in exchange for a kiss in the cheek from Christie.
Chip & Kim, being the first team to arrive at the pit stop, were the first to depart. They found that they had to go to Jose Rizal’s (our National Hero) Monument at Luneta Park to find the next route marker. Linda & Karen were the second team to depart, but once again, they had difficulty catching a cab, allowing Brandon & Nicole (third team to depart) to overtake them as they were able to flag down a taxi quickly. Colin & Christie brought up the rear since they were the last team to arrive.
From Luneta, teams found out that they must go to A. Soriano Aviation Hangar, and book themselves in one of two charter flights to the island of El Nido in the province of Palawan. Each flight will hold two teams, and the time difference between the two flights is 45 minutes, making it important that teams are able to get seats on the first flight out. Chip & Kim were first to sign up followed by Brandon & Nicole, leaving the moms and Colin & Christie to settle for the later flight.
Upon landing, teams in the first charter flight, after listening to the welcome song of some of the locals, took the same jeepney to the pier. And since they knew that they had an advantage of almost an hour over the other two teams, they had more time to ‘stop and smell the roses’ so to speak, as they voiced their admiration of the wonderful sights along the way. But of course this did not mean that their competitive spirits were lessened as they had the same thing in mind: finish ahead of the other team and claim this leg victory.
From the pier the two teams took separate boats to a buoy where they would get their next clue. Upon opening their clue, they found out that they had to use their binoculars and search the area for three islands with a flag each. Now, here comes the fun and tricky part. Only one of the three islands contains the Philippine national flag, and the next clue is located in that island. Teams must now choose which among the three flags they think is the real Philippine flag and go there to retrieve their next clue. If they go to a wrong island, they will be instructed to try again until they make the right choice. Making the right choice on the first try was important, as travel time between the islands is approximately 20 minutes. Of course, they were not allowed to ask their boat driver for help in picking an island.
Unfortunately, no one among the contestants had any idea on what our national flag looked like so they had to guess. Chip & Kim were the first to try out an island and when Chip opened his envelope, he found out that it was a wrong island. Brandon & Nicole meanwhile, chose to just follow Chip & Kim’s boat and ask them if it was the right island or a wrong one, without getting out of the boat themselves. This sort of irked the married couple and they decided that should they be able to get to the correct island on the second try, they would lie to them and tell them that it was a wrong one. And this time, they were indeed lucky enough to pick the correct island. Sure enough, when Brandon & Nicole asked Chip, he lied and told them that it was another wrong island. Brandon though got suspicious as instead of heading towards the third island the married couple seemed intent on going elsewhere. This prompted Brandon to go out of the boat himself and swim to the island. Learning later on that Chip lied to them, the two were naturally angry.
The next clue actually instructed the teams to go to the shoreline and find a marked beach. From there, they had to put on some snorkeling gear, then search the ocean floor for one of four giant clams. They had to open the clam to reveal their next clue.
Brandon & Nicole decided to split up in order to increase their chances of finding a clam, while Chip had to search on his own since Kim did not know how to swim. Nicole was the first to find a clam, but she seemed to be having a hard time keeping her head above water as she was screaming for Brandon to come to her. Chip, thinking that Nicole was drowning came to see if he could be of any help. But the dating couple, still suspicious of Chip especially after that last lie, thought he was about to steal their clue, and told him to beat it. Shortly after, Chip found another clam.
When the teams opened the clam, they found that they were faced with a “Roadblock”. A roadblock is a task that only one team member may perform. In this roadblock (entitled “Have Vertigo? Don’t go!” - but no one from among any of the teams knew what vertigo was), that team member must use a device known as an ascender to climb a 150-foot high limestone cliff called Lagen wall. On deciding which team member should do this, Brandon seemed a bit hesitant but had to give in when Nicole admitted that there was no way she would have beaten Chip at anything.
Meanwhile, for the teams traveling in the second charter flight, it was clear that this was going to be a race to avoid elimination. Right upon landing, they were hustling. They took different jeepneys to the pier, and all throughout the jeepney ride, kept on pushing their driver to beat the other jeepney. Same was the case with the boat ride to the buoy.
Like the two teams before them, none among Colin & Christie, and Linda & Karen knew which was the correct Philippine flag from among the three. Colin & Christie were first to pick an island and Linda & Karen decided to follow them. However this was a wrong island, and they quickly turned back. Colin & Christie was still ahead of Linda & Karen as they were making their way to the same island, when Linda spotted another island with a flag on the opposite direction. The moms decided to take a chance and go after that other island thinking that at least with this, they’ll have a chance to get ahead if they turn out to be right and Colin turns out to be wrong.
The bowling moms hit jackpot, as theirs was the correct island. Colin meanwhile was mad (again, but this time more at himself than anybody else) at needing three tries out of three to pick the correct flag. They knew now that it was going to be hard to catch up and avoid elimination again. But nevertheless, they of course sped up to the correct island, vowing to just work harder to be able to catch up.
The moms had little trouble looking for a clam and by the time the dating couple reached the beach, they were already preparing to leave for the roadblock. Colin meanwhile was quick to find a clam but was disappointed, as this was one of the clams whose clue was already claimed by another team. They were able to get their own clam shortly thereafter though, and were still hoping that they would be able to catch up as they zoomed towards Lagen wall.
[to be concluded...]
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