Celebrity 2024 - Episode 6 / Series Recap

The final checkpoint. Frutillar, Chile. What they’ve been working their way towards for the last 6 weeks and the end of the teams long journey.

The show didn’t make it easy to finish; budgets were running low and this was the longest leg of the race at over 1,700 mi from checkpoint 5.

After last week's extremely close leg, the teams were within an hour of each other setting off all leaving early in the morning desperate to make the final push.

The big question was where to cross the border into Chile, as most of the teams had very little spare cash. Episode 5 surprise winners Kola & Mary opted to head straight to the border; even making the insane decision to use a taxi to get there!

With the lowest funds this seemed a risky move, although it did allow them to get moving, and they picked up work in a campsite in Elqui Valley to help top up their purse again.

Kola seemed quieter this episode, the journey having maybe given the more enthusiastic party-lad of the early legs more time to contemplate and relax in more peaceful surroundings. 

He seemed to discover a new joy in horses and reflected a bit on the loss of his parents, and I think was realising how much the journey had given to him in between the running around (and stressful passport losing!)

Also taking time to relax were Jeff and Freddy, who almost seemed to forget they were in a race during much of the episode. The clips of the teams at the checkpoint suggested they had realised they maybe had more money then the others, but I don’t know if any of them realised they were twice as flush as Scott & Sam and Kelly & Jeremy, and had three times the budget of Kola & Mary!

But I wonder if they had also realised they had pushed too hard too early? They took a route back to San Salvador de Jujuy, for a 21 hour bus to Mendoza, but then stopped for a rest in a spa! I wonder if they heard some of the tales from the other teams, and decided to just enjoy the trip more than really push to win?

With their budget advantage and no need to work they could have made a more serious challenge, yet seemed to slightly give up - missing the bus back to the city from their relaxing spa and not pushing their advantage.

That said, Jeff kept on what I expect was his main reason to travel - boosting Freddy’s confidence and giving him prompts to think about his future. The trip seemed to have done a world of good for their relationship, and it’s hard to imagine they’d look back on it with regret for not winning when they got to spend more relaxed time with each other.

Far more keen to win were Kelly & Jeremy, who also followed the San Salvador de Jujuy to Mendoza route. Despite their lower funds though, the husband and wife took a taxi to Jujuy hoping to get an early lead, yet simply met up with Jeff & Freddy and Scott & Sam at the Jujuy bus terminal who’d got there with public transport. 

Scott & Sam actually took the longest to get there, having spent ages debating about routes unclear where to go, before flipping a coin to settle on the Jujuy to mendoza bus like the others. All three teams were then on the same long bus, with Scott & Sam trying to invent a code to covertly continue their planning - although how much secrecy you need for ‘flip a coin’ was not discussed!

At Mendoza while Jeff & Freddy chilled out in the spa, Kelly & Jeremy rushed further into Southern Argentina. Unfortunately this route was not a lucky one, with the couple experiencing a broken down bus, followed by many delays.

Scott & Sam however had a more financially arduous journey, making slow progress towards Santiago, but really drawing on their funds. They ended up working at a hot dog vendor for several hours, pulling in some substantial new funds, but were worried it had slowed them down a lot.

They were however tied with Kola & Mary as both teams entered Frutilla, and were told to head towards Ensenada and then the Osorno volcano. Both teams took taxis in Frutilla, but Scott & Sam had enough from their hot-dog work to use a boat to get to Ensenada itself. However as they got to the volcano, neither team had enough for the chair lift to take them to the final flag some way up the mountain.

The climb up was edited close, but Scott & Sam actually managed a 2 hour lead on the cousins, finishing first 30 days after the teams set off from Siqueira Campos Square in Brazil!

The boys were delighted with their success, and just as happy to see Kola & Mary take the relatively close second!

Jeff & Freddy, ended up coming in 3rd, arriving the day after the winners yet still with enough money for the chairlift!

Kelly & Jeremy also finished on day 31, with only 0.5% of their budget left, only just over an hour after Jeff & Freddy did!

This gave us the final result as:

1st	Scott & Sam	-	1%
2nd	Kola & Mary	+2h 20m	1%
3rd	Jeff & Freddy	+20h 14m	5%
4th	Kelly & Jeremy	+21h 36m	0%

Which makes our ending position chart look like this 

Which shows the end check-in was actually the worst individual result for both teams, although Jeff & Freddy just outperformed Kelly & Jeremy’s performance in week 2 to get only the fourth slowest time overall!

And as for the World Race Predictions players - how did we all do?

Well players placed their series prediction tokens over the course of all the episodes, and the easy favourite was Jeff & Freddy. They ended up with 52% of all the tokens played - while winners Scott and Sam… were the least favourite with only 11% of predictions put on them!

So I guess the real result is - you just can’t trust the wisdom of the crowds!

We’ll see you next year when Race Across the World returns!