7 Amazing Amazing Race Tasks to Recreate and Locations to Visit ...

1. Season 1 – India’s Rat Labyrinth

As Amazing Race was just getting onto its amazing feet, the tasks for Season 1 were built to test the contestants like lab rats. Literally. Throwing the lab rats together in a maze with REAL rats, the teams were forced to scurry about in search of clues at the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke, India. The rats at this temple are believed sacred and so they thrive, dashing madly about, just as their human counterparts were in their search for clues. This rat race likely convinced viewers that the Amazing Race was the real deal, which is why it too has become sacred and is thriving in its 24th season.

2. Season 3 – Mexico’s Papantla Flying Men Dance

In the town of Veracruz, Mexico, the ceremonial dance – the ‘Danza de los Voladores Voladores de Papantla’ (The Papantla Flying Men Dance) – involves some muy loco men shimmying up a 30 meter pole, tying their ankles with ropes, and swinging about the pole in their descent to the ground. This is a task that demands skill, fearlessness and maybe a few screws loose. Being as the Season 3 Amazing Race teams had to complete the task to move on, we can assume they have skill, fearlessness and perhaps no screws whatsoever.

3. Season 4 – South Korea’s Ice Freeze

This task required blood as cold as ice. Think about your coldest memory – now multiply that be a thousand. In South Korea, the Amazing Race teams had to plop into a river of ice, delve below the bloody cold water, and swim underneath to an exit hole. The water was so cold that following the challenge, the contestants had to be cleared by a doctor so that their body temps were safe to continue on. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.

4. Season 5 – Argentina’s Chocolate Frenzy

For most any chocolate connoisseur, at first sight, this task appeared heavenly. I mean, all the chocolate you can eat – come on, that’s a cake-walk. But imagine someone proffering you an 11,000 chocolate piece box of assortments and forcing you to bite into EVERY LAST ONE. That’s what Season 5’s teams were tasked with in Argentina, when they were ordered to locate one chocolate with a white centre among 11,000. Only .18% of the chocolates were winners – only 20 out of 11,000. If you’re unlucky, you’d be eating around 500 boxes of your average twenty-piece box of assortments...after that, even a chocolate connoisseur might want to find a new hobby.

5. Season 6 – Hungary’s Haunted House

Vampires, castles and blood – oh my! Season 6 contestants had to navigate the labyrinth of one of Hungary’s most famous haunts – Buda Castle. After which – wait for it – they had to drink a full goblet of pig’s blood. So plug in your vampire fangs and suck down that fine red wine. Clink!

6. Season 9 – Australia’s Spider River

You thought the Amazing Race couldn’t get any spookier than downing a goblet of pig’s blood? Think again! Although Season 9’s contestants weren’t forced to make their way through a creepy castle, they did have to make their way through a spider- and poisonous plant-infested river. The teams were tasked to swim down a river in Australia’s Northern Territory at Litchfield National Park. If you were a Season 9 contestant with arachnophobia, you probably would have given anything to down some pig’s blood in lieu of swimming through spider-infested rivers.

7. Season 10 – China’s Fish Eyes

Season 10’s food challenge involved some sickly green contestants and a bowl full of eyes. As a Chinese delicacy, fish eyes are a treat fit for royalty. These contestants weren’t feeling the royal treatment, however, and had to hold back their heaving and retching, with the “delicacy” looking squarely back at them in judgment.

However challenging, weird, or gruesome the Amazing Race tasks are, the lucky contestants certainly get to visit some incredible places around the world. Would you ever sign up for this crazy show?