From here, teams leave their bikes and enter an unknown world filled with wild boars, fist-sized beetles, and flying frogs. The sound of the jungle when the sun goes down is eerily deafening: reedy screeching, cawing, and buzzing all through the night.

Team Hi-Tec [go to Team Bio], led by the experienced David Kelly, labored the last ten kilometers of the bike section, pushing their bikes up some of the steeper hills where loose rocks prevented traction. Said Kelly, �I�ve never pedaled so much in my granny gear.�

Hi-Tec came into the Danum Valley Field Center caked with mud and blood, member Jacques Boutet wearing the remnant of a leech on his Adam�s apple. �Check out Jacques� leech hickey,� Kelly joked.[go to Feature // Leech Hickey] The last 24 hours have been no joke for Hi-Tec, though. They lost their all-important Passport on the ocean, and were forced to serve a six-hour penalty at PC 12. They used the opportunity to get some sleep. Then, last night, David Kelly got very sick. �I was vomiting and defecating all night, so I�ve lost a lot of fluids. Other than that, I feel great.� He also had three leeches under his left armpit.

Team oobe readied to leave, a bit concerned about the navigation in the ancient jungle and rainforest. Said Harper, who comes from Ketchum, Idaho,�This is going to be different than the mountains I�m used to. You can�t see much in there�no features, it�s dark.� Harper and the rest of her team trundled off, crossing a precarious suspension bridge leading them into the jungle.

Because the trek from Danum Valley to the Borneo rainforest lodge will take nearly 24 hours for even the best teams, racers have to think hard about how much water to bring, and many are fueling up big-time at PC 14. With the high heat and humidity, water is a serious concern, and teams must remember to consume plenty to avoid dehydration. But water is heavy (about 8 lbs. per gallon) so many teams gamble on finding it out on the course, which isn�t guaranteed. It�s a decision they must weigh hard.

At the PC, Mark Burnett asked Louise Cooper-Lovelace, captain of Team oobe what she thought of his tactic to split the teams up during this race. Cooper-Lovelace mused, �It�s an interesting idea, and I like it because it�s so different. And that�s where we made our first navigational error. Also, there is a potential during a split to have dissension among a team, so you have to watch that.�

There is a fantastic race going on at the very front of the pack. Through PC 15, Team Salomon/Eco-Internet [go to Team Bio] had taken the lead, leaving just twenty minutes ahead of Team AussieSpirit.com [go to Team Bio] at 4:50 a.m. A couple of hours back are four more exceptionally strong teams, all within just minutes of one another: Team Spie [go to Team Bio], Team Argentina [go to Team Bio], Team Red Bull Playstation [go to Team Bio], and Team Fairydown Fleet CookieTime [go to Team Bio].