nice! Were hoping to hit Patagonia around March, it will be starting to get cold but hopefully not a giant hunk of ice yet

If you are interested in more check out: Home on the Highway | Our adventures driving the Pan-Am.
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We settled into to life at our apartment. It was nice to have some routine after being on the move for so long. We would wake up in the morning, make some coffee, and hang out on the roof of our apartment watching the waves, the sun, and life waking up in our little town of Huanchaco.

It didn't take long for word to trickle out on the streets that "Home on the Highway" had a sweet beach pad and the visitors soon started rolling in.

Our first friends who came were our Canadian buds we had recently met in Ecuador. We spent lots of time strolling the town together, drinking Trujillo beers, and sitting on the beach. Standard Hunachaco life.






We paid a visit to Trujillo's largest ruin, the infamous CHAN-CHAN... ChanChan is a massive ruin covering over 20KM of land. It is actually the largest Pre-Columbian ruin in all of South America. The main complex is surrounded by giant adobe walls and divided up into various sections inside for ceremony, farming, and everyday life. At its peak over 30,000 people lived in this city. It was the capital of the Chimu empire.

The adobe walls are full of intricate patterns occasionally depicting animals as well.

Squirrels?


Pelicans?


ChanChan was kind of cool at first, however, after strolling along through the mud hallways eventually it gets pretty damn boring. We usually shy away from guides and prefer to discover a place by ourselves, I feel ChanChan needs a guide to do it justice.


We are headed out of the mud fortress when we come across a Peruvian family who has drug its 2-year old little boy out to see the mud. Surprisingly, the boy is not at all interested in staring at brown walls for hours at a time and its throwing a straight up tantrum as his clearly annoyed parents continue to drag him through the ruins.

At one point the crying kid walks in front of me and plops down directly in front of my feet as I am walking, not thinking much of it and not wanting to punt the kid, I just step over him and keep on strolling.

Looking back... perhaps that wasn't the best move.

A few seconds later I hear loud shouting behind me, I turn around and find a red-faced 5ft tall Peruvian man holding his kid in his arms screaming his ass off at me. His overweight equally red-faced wife behind him also yelling. Surprisingly, for the first time all day, the baby is silent...

I glean from the screaming that he is mad that I walked over his kid, I apologize but the man won't let us alone. He starts cursing at me, screaming about how Americans come to their country and disrespect them. Lo Siento Senor, No queiro problemas. At this point his loud shouting had gathered quite a crowd all standing around to watch the show. I stand there a while more getting threatened by this little red-faced man until a security guard comes over and tells us our group of 4 gringos we should probably leave. As I eyeballed 20 Peruvian males all around us itching to let out some pent-up aggression, I agreed.

We all hauled ass outta ChanChan laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Hey, at least we got some excitement out of the place!

More pics and the rest of the story here
Hostal Huanchaco AKA our new apartment | Home on the Highway

I hope I can one day partake in an excursion like the one you're taking! Every time you post, I grow a little more jealous.




Side note, your wife is insanely hot!



Sorry, somebody had to say it.

I saw the pictures on FB, looks like you have a blown head gasket. How long to get that repaired?

Driving through Central America is pretty cool, you can drive from one side of a country to the other in a single day or decide to stay a month or more really getting to know a place.



South America, is a bit different. Most of the countries on this continent are MASSIVE. You really need to adjust your scales when thinking of driving distances in South America vs Central America.

Sometime back in Panama we were speaking with our friend Vanessa about coming down to visit. We weren't exactly sure WHEN but we knew we would eventually make it Peru, home of Machu Picchu. The quintessential tourist destination in South America. A quasi-gameplan was set for Vanessa to fly into Lima, Peru where we would pick her up and then drive to Machu Picchu. I quickly glanced at the map online, Lima to Machu Picchu was only like 1.5 inches on the map. No big deal. A tentative date was set, plane tickets were purchased and we didn't really think about it further.

As our friends arrival date approached I finally starting looking into the logistics of this upcoming excursion. From our homebase here in Huanchaco it was a 9-hour drive to Lima. From Lima it was a nice and easy... TWENTY HOUR drive from Lima to Cusco.

Crap!

That's 2 solid days of driving on either side of the trip, effectively knocking her 7 day vacation down to a 3-day vacation.

We started scrambling for alternatives, we looked into flights from Huanchaco to Lima and Lima to Cusco. The last minute flights were going to be expensive, more than we could afford on our dwindling budget. I crafted a solution I like to call...

"THE GAUNTLET"

1. Wake up buttcrack early in Huanchaco
2. Drive 9 hours to Lima
3. Pick up Vanessa from Lima airport at 10PM
4. Drive 7 hours from Lima to Nazca throughout the night.
6. Arrive in Nazca, if the sun is not up yet, sleep for a few minutes.
7. Once there is enough light, hit the hairpinned highway up into the mountains towards Cusco, drive drive drive drive 13 hours.
8. Arrive in Cusco. Collapse into lifeless ball on ground.


Close to 30 hours of driving in a span of 48 hours. It sounded do-able, certainly not fun but I knew the 4Runner could handle it, if I could. Lauren called me crazy, she said we should just take our time. But now that "The Gauntlet" was crafted in my mind there would be no turning back. It was "Me VS The Road"

We packed up the truck and hit the road south.


We passed beautiful coastline and expansive deserts on our way to Lima.



Peru is jammed with so much history that occasionally you just randomly stumble across it. This adobe fortress rises up out of the desert on the side of the PanAmerican highway. I later learned that is it is the Fortress of Paramonga, part of the Chimu empire. We visited the Chimu capital, ChanChan, in our last post.


After a long day of driving we finally made it to Lima. Ugh. I hate driving in cities, especially Peruvian cities. Peruvian drivers are the WORST we have encountered on the trip thus far. Driving in Lima is truly a no-holds-barred grudge match. I have seen more than 1 public bus swap paint with a taxi cab while jockeying for position. Luckily we drive a big rusted/dented truck with gnarly steel bumpers on either end, add in the fact that I also drive like a madman and we have our own dog in the fight.


We posted up in Lima, caught some quick winks, and headed to the airport. The 10PM airport pickup went off without a hitch. We threw Vanessa in the back of the truck and hit the road. Lauren climbed back there as well and the ladies started chatting away about girly things.

I wasn't paying attention. I was focused. The Gauntlet has no time for chatting.

Eventually the girls talked themselves to sleep. I was alone. The 4Runner slipping through the inky black night of the Peruvian desert like a grey wolf hunting his prey. I continually pressed my face against the windshield ogling the billions of stars that blanketed the sky above us.

As the hours ticked by the lines on the road slowly blurred into a one long streak.


Sometime around 2:00AM I felt my brain start shutting down. Oh no you don't brain! I reached into the passenger seat and grabbed one of the questionable stimulants I picked up at a late-night Peruvian truckstop. I slammed the sickly sweet tincture into my gullet and felt an instant headrush and boost of energy. WOOOOOOWWEEE! TAKE THAT GAUNTLET!

Throughout the night I was teetering somewhere on the edge of F1 Racecar driving perfection and crashing the truck into a giant fiery ball. It was a healthy balance.

I snapped back to reality at a police checkpoint entering Nazca. I glanced at the clock. 4:45 AM. I glanced at the passenger seat. It was littered with Oreo cookie wrappers, various truckstop uppers, and a few empty beer cans. Luckily, the cop paid no mind to this crazy gringo driving in the middle of the night with 2 girls passed out in the back and waved me through.

I pulled over in between a bunch of other 18-wheelers parked past the checkpoint, turned off the truck, and tilted the seat back to try to catch some sleep.

Who was I kidding? I was so cracked out on truckstop go-juice there would be no sleep for me. I rolled down the window and stared at the stars for a while, watching the black sky slowly turn purple as dawn approached. It was very beautiful, I couldn't recall the last time I had been up to see daybreak.


My calming dawn moment was soon interrupted by a cacophony of big rigs roaring to life all around me. It seems we all had the same idea and had been waiting for enough sunlight to hit the wild mountain roads.

Not wanting to end up stuck behind a slow-moving convoy, I cranked the truck and hit the road once more.

We were soon winding through the low-lying front range of the Andes. As the sun came up, so did the girls. Good morning!


More of the story and pics here
The Gauntlet | Home on the Highway

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Home on the Highway | Our adventures driving the Pan-Am.

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We had a few days to explore Cusco before heading off towards Machu Picchu.


Machu Picchu is the #1 tourist destination in all of South America. The city of Cusco is the gateway to this destination, which by my calculations would make it the #1 Touristy city in South America. Despite the constant barrage of touts slinging everything from guided tours to 15-minute massages we found the town to still have some noble charm. Though sometimes you needed to muscle your way past a lumbering group of Llama-sweater clad gringos to get to it.

We roamed around the many large parques and admired the beautiful colonial churches and buildings.


There are a plethora of Inca and pre-Inca ruins surrounding Cusco aside from the big dog Machu Picchu. This ruin was located just a 5-minute walk from the campground. Sacsayhuaman (try saying that 5 times fast) is a sprawling walled complex which contains over 200 separate archeological sites. The walls were made up of giant meticulously carved boulders, some weighing up to 70 TONS! How the ancients carved, transported, and placed these giant stones is still a mystery to us all.


Since we were in the land of the touristas we decided to live it up. We got down on all kinds of Peruvian treats.

Here we have, the neon-yellow bubble-gum flavored Inka Kola. This drink is the #1 softdrink in all of Peru. I have yet to meet a foreigner who could stomach the stuff. I learned the the Coca-Cola company tried for years to defeat Inka Cola in a war for beverage market share in Peru. However, after 30 years of trying and not making any ground they went ahead and purchased the Inca Kola company all together. If you can't beat em... buy em!


The #1 Alcoholic beverage of Peru. Pisco Sour. Pisco is a type of liquor made from distilled grapes. It is insanely popular here in Peru. My favorite Pisco drink is a Chilcano, basically ginger-ale and Pisco. A traditional Pisco Sour is made with 1.5 shots of Pisco, egg whites, simple syrup, lime, and ice. Blend it all together, add a single drop of bitters for decoration. Drink up!


Vanessa and I got down on an Andean specialty. Alpaca meat! Alpaca is a furry cousin to the llama. Alpacas have been farmed for centuries. Their wool is used for clothing, their meat used for sustenance, and their bones used for jewelery and tools. Not a piece of the Alpaca goes to waste. Especially not when I am at the dinner table. Properly prepared Alpaca rivals the best filet mignon. It is a delicious meat which could be big in the states as long as no one ever saw the cute animal it comes from.



We strolled around the giant Cusco mercado. The market is split into two sections.. The first section contains various arts, crafts and clothing from the highlands. The second section (my favorite section) is a traditional food market along with rows and rows of sit-down eateries.


My favorite food stall was the frog soup lady. She had a bucket of live frogs and a giant pot boiling with frog broth. You pick your frog, into the soup it goes and a few minutes lady you have a bowl of fresh frog soup. Cures what ails ya!


We spent the rest of the day touring around being dopey tourists.


That night we met up with our Canadian friends (freshly decked out in the latest Llama fashions) and we got to drinking.


and drinking... and drinking some more. We ended up at a small locals bar later that night where we danced our face off till 3AM or so. Good times had by all.


Next morning we were up and packed the truck. Feeling a little groggy we stopped for some Peruvian pick-me-ups. A cup of Coca leave tea and some Coca hard candies and we were wired up ready to go.


A quick stop by the Nacional Banco de Peru to pay for our Machu Picchu ticket (~$50 per person) which is about 25x more expensive than every other ruin in Peru... and we were off!

The drive from Cusco to Ollyantantambo, where we would catch the train, was spectacular. We dropped in and out of various little pubeblos and passed at least 5 separate Inca ruins along the way.


My favorite town sign represented their hometown specialty. Cuy Al Palo AKA Spit-roasted guinea pig.


We had originally planned to drive the 4x4 route as close to Aguas Calientes (the final town before Machu Picchu) as possible, but with light dwindling and no real idea on a route, we decided to catch the train from Ollyantantambo to A.C instead. It was ~$50 per person per ticket per way!

We found a cheap lot to stash the truck and posted up while waiting for the train, the ruins of Ollyantantambo as our backdrop.


Lauren, of course, managed to make a new dog friend in our 30-minute wait.


The train was surprisingly fancy and you got a little snacky-snack to eat as you gawked out the panoramic windows engulfed by giant snow-capped mountains.


We arrived into Aguas Calientes just as the sun was setting. An unremarkable maze of a town. Machu Picchu "Made in China" knickknacks flooding out of every store front.


We found a cheap hostel, grubbed out, and hit the hay. We had to be up at 430AM to try and catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu in the morning.

Up before the dawn we rounded up some bus tickets, ~$9, and queued up. We thought we were slick getting up early, seemed like everyone else had the same idea and we were around the 300th or so in line. Eventually the buses actually started running and the line moved fairly quickly, shuffling all our sleepy butts up the mountain.

Dumped off in front of the insanely expensive Machu Picchu hotel (which I later learned was accidentally built on-top of some Inca ruins, nice going guys!) we queued up in yet another line.

Battling our way through the line we made a mad dash up towards the terraces near "The Guardhouse", one of the best viewpoints, and waited for the sun the come up.

From our terraced lawn we watched the sun slowly rise over the rift. We could see no other life but the llamas grazing sleepily on the tall grass. The crazy 30 hours of driving, the boatloads of spent cash, and the dopey tourist towns all faded away as we soaked in the moment. This is what we have been working for...


We took some time just sitting there enjoying the early morning then started touring the ruins.

For more pics and rest of the story, here is the full article
Cusco and the almighty Machu Picchu | Home on the Highway

When we originally started out on the trip we had plan for it to take around 1-year to get down to Ushuaia. We had a quasi-budget and timeline that seemed reasonable.

Somewhere around Month #9 and the country of Peru we realized that our budget was way off. We really should have alotted more like 30-40% of our budget to booze and box wine instead of 15%... and given ourselves at least 1.5 years if not more for this trip.

Damn you Clos!! You know we cant resist.



We were faced with the fact that we could either...

A. Haul ass straight to Ushuaia, see nothing, and basically be broke at the end of the trip.
B. Try to hunker down and figure out a way to make money in Peru to keep the trip going.

We figured worse case scenario we had enough cash to float us for 2 months in Huanchaco and then we could stash the truck, fly home, work for a bit and fly back.

We REALLY did not want to go back the U.S.A. yet. The thought of dickhead bosses, daily commutes, and Applebees sampler platters are enough to turn my stomach. We got started searching for work.

We made some friends in Huanchacho who told us there was plenty of work teaching english classes to locals. We looked into it and to do it legally, you were required to sign up for a fairly large time commitment and the pay was less than stellar (around $7/hour after taxes). No thanks.

Back in the states I worked as an IT Consultant, 95% of my job was done remotely. I figured it would be easy to call up some old contacts and find some temporary work. Well... most of my friends had moved on to new gigs where they didn't pull much weight or their bosses wanted me to be available for onsite calls as well. Kind of hard to do from Peru.

Desperate, I picked up some shady craiglist gig doing Midnight shift end-user remote support for some Motel internet support company. The calls were from the deepest levels of hell (You can imagine the type of person calling you up from the Big 8 Motel at 3AM trying to get porntube.com working...) and at only $8/hr. I lasted about a week.


Talking with a buddy of mine (What up B-rats!!) about the situation he told me about a remote IT support gig his friends were doing. He said they were making decent money and it was 100% remote. It sounded to good to be true but I signed up anyway and went through an interview process. About 2 weeks later I started taking calls. With this job you were able to work as much or as little as you want, no set schedules, no bosses. Straight 1099 Contractor pay. It was absolutely perfect for us. Lauren found another online job that was bringing in cash as well. We were sitting pretty!

I would work from about 9AM to around 10PM at night, 6 days a week. The calls were horribly mind-numbing but the pay was great and I was able to do it in my underwear sittin' on the roof of our apartment looking out over the beaches of Peru. I could not complain at all.

View from my office, Ignore the 3rd world ghetto TV antennas and you can see the Pacific!


After the first month I received a legit paycheck deposited into our Paypal account. It was enough to keep us on the road for at least another 2 months.

SUCCESS!

We had figured it out. In the face of adversity and a dwindling bank account we made it work financially here in Peru and along the way we discovered how to technically extend our travels indefinitely.

Elated, We buckled the hell down and grinded out 3 months of solid work in Huanchaco.

It wasn't all work and no play though. Laurens sister, Carly, flew into Lima, caught a bus to Huanchaco and hung with us for 2 weeks. We partied it up in our hometown of Huanchaco and toured tons of Peru with her.

Carlys back!


She was a hit with all of our Peruvian friends of course.


With Carly around we all of the sudden became the most popular people in Huanchaco. Dinner invitations and parties every night!



During one drunken night we were talking about going sandboarding. Our best buddy in Huanchaco, Pinky, knew some folks who rented boards, and also knew a spot that we could 4x4 too and sandboard for free. This sounded like a lot more fun than paying for some dopey gringo tour. The next morning, hungover as hell, we loaded up the boards and bounced across the deserts of Peru to some towering sand dunes.



Trekking through some farms to get to the dunes.


The one downside to doing this the locals way is you gotta hike your butt up to the top of the dune. Hard work indeed!


Pinky gave us a few quick lessons and away we went! Sort of...


The girls were much better than I.




But I make this stuff look good!


After 2 hikes up the dune we were spent. While I originally thought sandboarding was going to be kind of lame, it was actually a load of fun. It was way easier than snowboarding and a lot less painful when you wipe out. Plus you can do it in a bathing suit rather than 100Lbs of cold weather gear. Highly recommended.




After a few days of fun in the Huanchaco sun we loaded up the 4Runner and hit the road, headed to the Andes.

Sorry Carly, only 2 seats in the 4Runner. We convert it into a Cama-bus for passengers.


Adios beaches. Hello mountains!


We cut up from the coast and soon entered into the famed "Canyon del Pato" (Canyon of the Duck). Canyon Del Pato runs between two gigantic Peruvian mountain ranges, the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra (The latter being the second highest mountain range in the world, only defeated by the mighty Himalayas). The route is a dirt road originally built to mine the mountains out here. It has over 35+ tunnels hand-carved straight out of the face of the mountain with the raging Rio Santa always at your side. It is an amazing trek and a must-do for any overlanders.


More pics and the rest of the story on the blog at
Carly comes to visit! Part 1 – Canon Del Pato & Laguna Paron | Home on the Highway

Wow.

We cruised down the bumpy road heading towards the town of Yungay.

Along the way we stopped to have some lunch. They had a full menu of Andes treats. Guinea Pigs, Stream trout, pork, and hen.


They also had Alpaca on the menu but after seeing these cute dudes roaming around in the backyard of the place. I just couldn't pull the trigger.


Plenty of Canchas (Kind of a Peruvian popcorn) and Coca tea were consumed though. It really does help with the altitude sickness at these heights.



We ate up and headed down the road to the town of Yungay.

Yungay while seemingly a thriving town today, has a very sad history. It was here in Yungay that 25,000 people lost their lives during the great earthquake of 1970. The quake dislodged 1/4 of the mountain top sending 50 million cubic meters of debris flying down the hillside at speeds over 400 KMH. The entire town was buried alive before they even knew what hit them. Only the tops of a few tall palms remained after the landslide.


We followed a small dirt road up above the new town headed towards

Sheep pelts drying in the sun... and a satellite dish of course. You don't want to miss the latest "YO SOY!". The Peruvian version of American Idol. Which, if you can imagine, is somehow even worse than that drivel they put on in the states.



We arrive at the LLaganuco Lodge... after getting lost for about an hour. Hey Charlie, invest in a sign will ya!?


We posted up camp and explored the beautiful grounds. Charlie really has an amazing slice of land wayyyy off the grid up here in the highlands just below the Lagunas Llaganuco.



Who needs a newspaper with views like these?



We hung out with Charlies' 2 Rodesian Ridgebacks. They do a good job of keeping the property safe.


Next morning we headed up the trail on foot to the lagunas, located about an hour walk from the lodge.


At the lake info center they had a creepy display of some native animals. Including this horribly stuffed mountain derp lion.


Luckily the lake itself more than made up for the derp lion.


The steep gorge walls plunged directly into the azure glacial waters. Quite a sight.



After exploring the lake a bit we took a small footpath through a forest of Queñoa trees. They are more popularly known as Polyepis trees and are native to the Andes mountains. Their flaky red bark and twisting shapes reminded me of the Manzanita trees back home in the Sierra mountains.



More pics and rest of the story on the blog at
Carly comes to visit! Part 2 – Laguna LLaganuco, Chavin Ruins, y mas! | Home on the Highway

No, no they didn't. Defrag is sharing an incredible story and some beautiful pictures, and all you can do is tell him you want to bone his wife?

GTFO with that. Go post on MySpace or something, that's maybe more your speed.

i like how the op just ignored him lol.

What an amazing trip. I just came across this and am really enjoying your posts. I do have to say that I am a big fan of the Inca Cola. I was in Ecuador in 2009 and 2010 doing field work and drank a ton of that stuff. I was recently in Colombia and enjoyed seeing your pictures of the Magdalena River Valley. We were there for five days sleeping in hammocks in the heat. Great place, but hot and humid!

Loo with a View! =D

One of my main goals before we left our apartment in Huanchaco was to finally get caught up on our perpetually lolly-gagging blog. Well... needless to say that didn't happen. In fact our blog is now hitting an almost laughable 4-month delay compared to real-time. To all my faithful readers I apologize!

If you are interested in receiving real-time updates then you should check out our facebook page at http://facebook.com/homeonthehighway

Life continued pretty normally in Huanchaco, hanging out with our buds, working, drinking beers, and watching sunsets. We really love our lives here in Huanchaco but we were starting to feel that itch to get back on the road. We finally made the decision to tell our landlord that November would be our last month in the apartment.

Just a few weeks before our departure date we got some more visitors. Jed and Megan from Adventure Americas are fellow Americans who drove their Toyota Tacoma with a Phoenix Pop-up camper all the way from Wyoming down to Peru. They too are headed to Ushaia. When they showed up to the house with 8 liters of beer and a box of wine, we knew we would soon be becoming best friends.


We hung around the house a few days cooking, grubbing, and getting to know each other.


One night we let it slip that we had not been camping in over 4 weeks. Fearing that they were hanging out with a bunch of sissy housecats the plan was made to go camping the next night. We jumped on Google Earth and found some nice 4x4 desert roads from Huanchaco that led out to a canyon that looked great for camping.

We headed out the next morning.



Having a little fun in the soft desert sands


Along the way we picked up two of Jed and Megans friends from Austrailia. The Australians flew to California, purchased two KLR 650's and headed south. We all agree they are much more hardcore than we are.



We eventually found the perfect spot and setup camp.




Many beers were drank, bullshit road stories swapped, and good times had by all around the fire that night.


The next day was Thanksgiving. Them being Aussies and all; our friends had no idea what lie in store for them when we invited them to a good ol' fashion USA Thanksgiving feast.

The next day we headed up to the store to try to find a turkey. Interestingly enough... Peruvians don't celebrate Thanksgiving so it was harder to track down a Turkey than we thought. We eventually manage to find a breast and some legs. We combined the pieces into a Frankenstein turkey with 6 legs, since thats everyone's favorite part anyway. We also bought all the fixin's we could find corn, sweet potatoes, green beans, butter, etc etc. We got home and hit the kitchen.




Our Australian friends wondering where all the butter keeps going, as I run to the store for the 3rd time to buy MORE. Oh if they only knew...


Stuffing, Green Bean Casserole, Sweet potato pie.


Not pictured is the turkey, but here is the aftermath of our feast. The Aussies said they had never eaten that much food in their lives.



In the morning we waved goodbye to Adventure the Americas and started packing up the house. It took us a grand total of 1.5 hours to relocate our entire lives back into the truck. Definitely a nice perk of traveling light.


People have been asking ask what will happen to our newly found kitten Squeakers? Well... We tried taking him out with us a few times on the road but between him throwing endless squeel fests, being scared crapless, and jumping out the window of the moving 4runner we decided he might not be fit for the hard life on the road. Lauren still wanted to take him but she agreed it wouldn't be fair to drag along the cat if it was not interested in this overlanding life of ours. It was a difficult decision to leave the little dude behind, but after the hellish week you will read about in our next post we were convinced we made the right decision.


Goodbye Huanchaco. We hope to return someday.



Next we head back to the Ecuadorian border yet again to renew our vehicle permits and then off to Lima to do some dog-sitting for our buddies at SprinterLife. We gave ourselves 6-days to complete this 3-day trip. Plenty of time right!?

Wrong...

This is definitely awesome. lol