The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S3E21 - Up Is The Way Down

Really love this puzzle, I gotta torment my sisters with this in D&D

Sancho and Pedro are forced to work on the ship, daydreams about their taverna, but feels that without Mendoza it isn't really worth it, so they steal a lifeboat and rows back to land in search of Mendoza. Mendoza on the other hand tries to follow the children and follows the beduins caravan as far as he can get. Meanwhile the children goes into the maze of the ziggurat until they fall through trap-door and enters a chamber with a door with the cycles of the moon and sun on it with a riddle. I gotta steal that riddle for a D&D game. After some trial and errors they figure out what to do and ends up at a chamber further below where a chest lies, but instead for the veils they are looking for finds a piece of wood with an inscription telling them about the fall of Akkad and that the veils have been stolen.

Meanwhile Ambrosius have caught up with them and he and Laguerra enters the ziggurat while Gaspard guards the ship. They find the door to the chamber and blows it up, finding the kids inside. For the last couple of episodes I find it rather funny that Ambrosius' group resembles doctor Laguerra's from the first season. Both the doctor and Ambrosius are rather short and with facial hair, Laguerra's daughter and Marinche and then the big brute and Gaspard. I wonder if they retconned it so that Doctor Laguerra was working for the Order of the Hourglass during season 1?

The documentary was about the Mountain of the Moon-ziggurat that is a real place and that in the Persian desert can reach 50 degrees celsius.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S3E20 - The Mountain of the Moon

The Mountain of the Moon

The kids flies off to Akkad and stops to get some milk from roaming goats. During the nightfall the boys discovers the Zia possesses telekinetic powers. Meanwhile at dawn, Mendoza talks to the captain of the ship when Malik, the leader of the beduins are harassed by the soldiers of the city. Mendoza saves him, but the ship leaves port with Sancho and Pedro sleeping inside of it. Malik tells Mendoza that Ambrosius have escaped and offers to take him with their caravan to Oman so he can leave the city. He also reveals that the beduins are descendants to an ancient people that have the symbol of the medallions tattooed on their chest and the reason they took an interest in the children's medallions.

The kids finds the Temple of the Moon and are able to enter it. They find a riddle about a snake and a lion meeting and discovers two plates with those animals. They think back to when the met Pasha in the Americas and released the ice pillars (I believe it was) and after breaking the non-animal tiles, push those two together. And after sitting on it, the tiles goes down and the wall opens a pathway.

The documentary is about the nomads in Iran that lives in the mountains and how they live with their goats and gets foods and materials from them.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S3E19 - A New Beginning

The setting sun

The leader of the beduins gives Zia back her medallion, but as the children leaves have the boy follow them. They meet up with Mendoza that warns about Ambrosius plans and Pedro is able to catch the sneaking boy, who in turn show them the way to the antique dealer. Ambrosius and Laguerra is already there looking for the map to Acad(?). Our heroes bump of some of the portuguese guards and is able to sneak up on Ambrosius just when he is about to order Laguerra to kill the antique dealer so as not to leave any trace. They tie them up and the antique dealer tells them that the fourth city is somewhere in Mesopotamia and that the mountain of the moon was a ziggurat temple dedicated to the moon. Gaspard shows up looking for a present for Laguerra since he meet her in the previous episode and fell in love with her at first sight. Mendoza knocks him out and they tie him up together with the others. The antique dealer takes the children out through an unguarded gate while Mendoza, Sancho and Pedro charges at the soldiers looking for them, and finds themselves at a dead end, but are rescued by some people in flying machines. Obviously it's the beduins and the boy they captured before takes them to the leader who have arranged passage on the ship Esperanza that will take them off the island, and back to Spain. I checked it, and that was the name of the ship they travelled to the Americas with in season 1, which was destroyed in the storm that made our heroes end up at the Galapagos Islands and finding Tao. The episode ends as the kids looks over the city and has to leave without the adults and Ambrosius, Gaspard and Laguerra looks over ready to follow with their compass and airship after Gaspard was able to free himself and the others, ready to join them to get revenge on Mendoza.

The documentary was about bazaars and some special spices.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S3E18 - Hormuz

Arabian Night

Our heroes starts to think about what they are gonna do. Mendoza, Sancho and Pedro begins to think about getting home to Spain since they were rewarded with some emeralds from the village children and buy a tavern and settle down. Esteban are ready to give up the quest for the cities of gold to be with his father until he is strong enough to make the travel himself. Tao and Zia are still bent on stopping Ambrosius since he now is a threat to the whole world. They also learn that the fourth city is somewhere in a land called Acadia(?) and Atanos informs them that an antique dealer in the city of Hormuz can point them toward the right direction. They all set off and reaches Hormuz at the same time as the portuguese ship Gaspard was on arrives at the city as well, and he is dumped into the harbour since the captain is so mad at him. Ambrosius and Laguerra has bribed the governor to set a trap for them.

Wandering the city looking for the antique dealer, Laguerra catch up with Mendoza and tells him about the trap as payment for Mendoza letting her go in India... which was payment for letting Mendoza go at the village, so I can't help but think there's something more to it than that. The kids meanwhile gets Zia's medallion stolen by some random kid and they give chase up to the rooftops where they end up at some camp and gets surrounded by nomads. They look a bit like the guardians of the mummy in the Branden Frasier movies so I wonder if they serve the same purpose.

The documentary was about the blue city below the palace in India and how it seems they painted the houses blue for the priesthood that lived there and that it either protected from the sun or mosquitos. The small ending tidbit was about how you could bind the turban over your head. 

The Mysterious Cities of Gold - S3E17 - Free!

Wait, a drugged maharaja? IT IS Temple of Doom!

So Ambrosius captures Esteban. Mendoza duels with Laguerra while Tao blows down the door to Atanos cell and bring him to the courtyard where Zia have scared away the guards as well as the children from the village that breaks down the gate with their elephant. Sancho and Pedro takes the captured adults and storm out of the castle. Esteban is able to fire the antidote at the maharaja from a blowgun who awakens and turn the guards against Ambrosius that in desperation sets the palace on fire. Tao after getting Atanos to the condor heads back to get Esteban. Mendoza continues to fight Laguerra until the castle guards appears to arrest her, but since she let Mendoza and the kids off the hook at the village Mendoza returns the favor. Ambrosius and Laguerra escapes, although not able to get back the orichalcum matrix (although Laguerra seems to be as shifty as Mendoza was back in season 1). Esteban and Tao is caught in the inferno and flees downward until they find the Olmecian machine. Everyone else have escaped outside and as the palace collapses Tao starts up the Olmecian machine and is able to fly of and crash land to safety.

Esteban is reunited with his father and Pedro tells Mendoza that they did deliver on their promise, which makes Mendoza say that they are ready for adventures once again. Which made me wonder what Mendoza thought this have been if not an adventure, traveling across three continents, discovering three cities of gold and be in danger for most of the time?

The documentary was about the Amber palace which it's also known as that inspired the fort (or castle, palace and whatever, the naming differs from episode to episode) where different rooms where and such. Also it was a bit of some kind of giant cooking pot that was used to feed the residence of the palace. Which make sense, but you seldom here about how they are preparing food for a population of 200 people in a castle that much.