Last night's Amazing Race returned to its kick-ass self, but not without some blood, sweat, and a mystery involving a sports bra. More importantly, though, my geeks, Mark and Bill, got tossed on a technicality. The agony!

The gang began this leg back in Fortaleza, Brazil and got their marching orders to fly southwest to La Paz, Bolivia. Before the flight, though, divorcees Kelly and Christy found themselves chest-deep in an intriguing yarn: Did Starr push Christy's sports bra off the hotel ledge? We will never know!

Upon arriving in La Paz, the teams gathered at the feet of the city's Simon Bolivar statue and awaited the arrival of the morning paper, which would contain their next clue. The team to beat, Ken and Tina, found the info -- an ad for a hat sale -- lickety-split and took off in the nearest taxi. The rest peeled away fairly soon after and headed for the Narvaez Hat Shop.

There, a bowler-hat peddling senora offered them two options for this leg of the race: "Musical March" or "Bumpy Ride." The former involved the wrangling of street musicians for a (very) slow stroll through the city; the latter, a whirl on a Bolivian-made wooden bicycle on the cobblestone streets of La Paz. But most importantly, they had to walk to this challenge -- no taxis allowed. This would become a painfully important detail later in the show.

Most teams chose the bike challenge (riding these Flintstones-like bikes looked like a special kind of torture) and Mark and Bill overcame their overall lack of physical fitness to come in first. Their cabbie stopped for gas, so Ken and Tina lapped the duo and arrived at Los Titanes del Ring for a Road Block: one team member was to suit up and wrestle a tiny Bolivian woman known as "cholita." Mucha lucha!

By far the most surprisingly effective team, Ken and Tina, once again blew me away. Ken aced his wrestling tutorial, passed muster with the judges, and didn't look half-bad in the superhero-like jumpsuit they had to wear. Speaking of not looking bad, Dallas was downright hunky in his duds and made Mama Toni proud as she cheered him on from the stands. Those teams made quick exits and came in 1 and 2 at the Pit Stop, with Terrence/Sarah, Marisa/Brooke, Aja/Ty, Nick/Starr, and Andrew/Dan filing in respectively.

Wrestling-challenged and altitude-affected Mark had to wrestle three different times (poor guy) and it was suddenly a dead-heat between the Comic Book Geeks and the Divorcees. The Geeks arrived first, though already privy to the frustrating news that they'd incur a 30-minute penalty for taking a cab to the bike challenge instead of walking, as was mandated by their directions. So they sat and waited. Would the girls arrive before their penalty was up?

Sadly, they did and the dreams of my favorite nerds imploded like the Death Star. See kids, the lesson here is this: Always read the directions carefully because even the brainiest players among us (and this is something I can attest to) aren't immune to that whole the devil-is-in-the-details reality of game play.

Oh, and the other lesson to be taken from this ep is it's always best to dry your sports bra inside your hotel room. OK?

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