Radio Puzzle Hunt Game

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined once again, live on the line from New York City, by John Chaneski. Hello, John.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. How are you guys?

Hi, what’s happening over there?

Doing well.

What I have for you is another radio puzzle hunt.

Yay!

Do you remember I know…

I love these.

I don’t remember.

I love these.

Was this more recently than 10 minutes ago? Because I don’t remember it.

Martha asked for this recently, so it’s another radio puzzle hunt.

Like a regular puzzle hunt, I’ll give you a clue leading to a location.

Real place. It’s a real place in the world somewhere.

And if you manage to solve it or get to the new location, there’ll be a new clue waiting for you there. What do you mean if? I remember now.

This puzzle is an around the world one. It can lead you to any place in the world.

Here we go. The first one’s easy, I’m sure.

Oh, yeah. You always say that. Your puzzle hunt begins at the Capitol building in the only U.S. State capital that consists of three words. Salt Lake City. There you go.

Oh, very good.

All right.

So you begin in Salt Lake City.

Once you get there, you find a shining golden plaque that reads…

Go back to Illinois.

Go back home.

Go to the Central American country that is the only country named after Jesus Christ.

El Salvador.

El Salvador, right.

The Holy Savior.

Very good.

When your plane lands, you spot a cheering mob spelling out this clue.

Go to a Caribbean island nation whose flag features a trident head.

Now, this is no coincidence.

The first four letters of the country name describe a feature of a trident’s tip.

Trinidad and toboggan?

No.

No?

Durn.

What feature do you find on the tip of a trident?

A hook or a bar?

Barbados.

Barbados.

Very good.

This flag was intentionally designed with that in mind.

Isn’t that right?

Now, when you get there, you check into your hotel, and all of a sudden, a note has slipped under your door.

It reads, find a city whose name answers this question.

Name two letters that can be used to make the sound K.

KC, Kansas City?

No.

Q.

That’s a good alternate, though.

Q.

How about this?

Find an Irish city.

County Cork?

No.

Darn, that doesn’t work.

Cork is correct.

Cork?

Cork, C or K.

Oh, nice.

There you go, a little chicken there.

Oh, C or K.

Yeah, baby.

All right.

That’s good.

I’ll accept the feat on that one.

It was clever.

That’s all right.

Thank you.

So you go to Cork, and while wandering around, you spot a plane doing some skywriting.

It reads, head to a country whose name can be anagrammed to Big Mule.

Love it.

Big Belgium.

Belgium.

There you are.

Head to Brussels or anywhere near there is fine.

When you get there, a strange man runs up to you and whispers the following clue.

Travel to an African country whose name becomes a woman’s name when you remove the first letter.

An African country whose name becomes a woman’s name when you remove the first letter.

I’m like you’re spelling Hannah wrong.

No.

Rwanda.

Rwanda is correct.

Very nice.

Also the name of a popular movie, Fish.

After a day and a night there, your PDA vibrates delightfully, and you receive a text that says,

Jaunt on over to an Asian city that has a homophone, describing a real go-getter.

Wow.

Generally, people are classified in two different categories.

Taipei.

Taipei.

That’s correct.

Very good.

Oh, Chaneski.

As an unusual consequence of all this traveling, you’ve got some mild hallucinations, one of which involves a talking cat who mumbles the following clue.

You need to reach the mouth of a river.

If you change the first letter of this river’s name, it becomes a word of celebration.

It is the longest river on its continent, and its continent is Australia.

Oh.

I don’t know any rivers in Australia.

I’m running through Waltzing Matilda.

Not even the longest?

Well, maybe.

Well, give me a word of celebration.

What do you say when you do something right?

Hooray?

That’s it.

Hooray?

And if you change the first letter, you find a man’s name.

Murray?

Murray.

Oh, Murray.

That’s right.

It’s the Murray River.

Oh, sorry, all you cobbers.

River in Australia.

That’s the second time recently you’ve stumped us with an Australian clue.

I got a bone up on my job.

I’m sorry about that.

You are my mates, and I’m sorry.

Murray becomes hooray, and as in hooray, you’ve solved all the clues, the last clue at least, on the international puzzle hunt.

You guys did very, very well.

You’re being very generous, John.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

That was fun.

If you’d like to send us your puzzle questions or if you’d like to just ask a question about language and words and grammar and so forth, give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Or put it all in email to words@waywordradio.org.