Story by: Kath Stathers, Pictures by: Marco Miranda

Forty-Four years ago a troop of Brazilian scouts drove to Canada on a Jeep-Sponsored jamboree. Among them was a spirited 15 year-old called Marco Miranda, who was so inspired by the adventure that he vowed, one day, to make his own epic road trip. Back home in Araras, Rio de Janeiro, Marco grew up, studied photography, married and started a family. But the dream persisted - until 1999, when, aged 57, and once again with help from Jeep, Miranda loaded his camera gear into a Cherokee and set off on a trip that would take him and his son Pedro, 20, the length of South, Central and North America and back again.

"Today" said Pedro as they headed south in the bright March sunlight "we start the dream of a lifetime." Their preparations for the trip had taken more than a year, with a dry run of a 27 day off-road expedition through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela, and some 3700 miles (6000km) of test drives in the Jeep, to familiarise themselves with the vehicle and check their equipment.The Mirandas had also mapped out a route that would take in more natural wonders than most people see in a lifetime of watching wildlife programmes, and, within days of setting out, Marco and Pedro arrived at Foz do Iguacu, one of the world's seven natural wonders. Set on the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, this horse-shoe shaped series of waterfalls stretches for nearly 2 miles throwing up plumes of fine spray and creating brilliant rainbows over the lush, fern-clad cliffs.

The travellers moved on to Argentina, driving on hard-packed red clay roads across vast plains dotted with tiny
villages and welcoming cafes serving mate — a reviving tea-like brew sipped through special perforated silver straws. There are no speed bumps on Argentinian roads — just very vigilant traffic police — and the Mirandas were fined 40 pesos for speeding. As they drove south, the Andes appeared our of the Patagonian savannah. Plains gave way to foothills, and the Jeep climbed through pine forests and past turquoise lakes into the mountains. They stopped for a few days at Bariloche, a haven for well-heeled Argenrinians, who ski there in the winter and escape the heat of the plains there in summer. The resort, says Marco, has another attraction: "You can find good steaks all over Argentina, but the best one was definitely here."

By now, the trip had developed a steady rhythm. Each day they would cover around 180 miles, stopping at towns of varying sizes to talk to the people and photograph and video what they found, building up as they went a snapshot of life in the three Americas at the turn of the millennium.

After Bariloche they decided to leave the tarmac to take an off-road pass through the mountains, cutting through forests of monkey puzzle trees into Chile and the start of their journey north along the Pan-American Highway. Chilean legend suggests that when God finished making the world he gathered the loveliest remnants —forests, lakes, snow-capped mountains, islands and deserts — and carefully pieced them together to create Chile, his final masterpiece. Marco could see how the legend had starred: "I will never forget the moment the road turned and suddenly, before us, was a series of snow-capped peaks, like icebergs in a splendorous blue sea." Further on, road signs warned them not to sound their horn, so they wouldn’t disturb the local bird life, and every so often, as they journeyed north across the empty miles of the Atacama desert, a perfectly conical volcano topped with a wispy streak of smoke would punctuate the distant Andes.

Eventually they crossed into Peru, heading for the capital, Lima, where they loaded the Cherokee on to a boat bound for Panama and Central America. The roads in Central America were the worst yet, going from paved to gravel, dust, mud and back again. Yawning potholes tested the drivers’ skills, but the Cherokee kept them comfortable. On they drove, negotiating the troublesome bureau-cracy of border crossings through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and into Mexico, where they skirted the Mariachi bands but fell prey to the border police. "They searched the Jeep, saying they were looking for drugs, but afterwards, I noticed my tools were missing," says Marco. "It was scary, nut I complained. They 1st told me to keep going." So they did, finally crossing into the US at Mexicali.
For Marco and Pedro, this was s defining moment — the switch from Latin America to North America, from Spanish to English, from rice and chicken burgers and fries.

It was also time for a break, so when they reached California’s Yosemite National Park, they struck camp for three weeks to explore. Suitably refreshed, they drove on, through San Francisco and Seattle and on into Canada. From Vancouver they detoured east to Banff and north up the Icefield Parkway, a magnificent twisting stretch of tarmac carved through the Canadian Rockies to Jasper. Then it was on to Dawson Creek and the start of the Alaska Highway. At Watson Lake, near the town of White Horse, the Mirandas saw one of the strangest sights yet: a forest of roadsigns. An American GI posted there in 1942 had put up a signpost for his hometown and, since then, some 30,000 visitors have followed his example.

By now they were nearing the end of the drive north, but one of the trickiest stages was still to come: the Dalton Highway - although "highway" is something of a misnomer for a road this rough. Potholes and razor-sharp rocks and gravel make this 400-plus mile road one of the toughest tests of any vehicle’s tyres and suspension. "It would have been the worst place in the world to get a puncture, you’re so isolated," says Marco. But the Cherokee made steady progress. Finally, on 15 July 1999, after 16 hours straight at the wheel, past milepost 414, they reached the town of Deadhorse on Prudhoe Bay, the most northerly point that can be reached by road. "It was like an endur-ance drive," says Marco. "But to get there meant fulfilling a dream. We saw the sun falling below the horizon and just after that rising again, announcing the start of a new day. I sat at the wheel and it really hit me then, all the fantastic things we’d seen on the way."

But the adventure didn’t end there. For the return journey, they crossed the Rockies and headed down to Yellowstone, where they stopped for trekking. Then they headed east to the Great Lakes and on to Boston in the teeth of Hurricane Floyd. On this part of the journey, the on-board GPS navigation system came into its own. Gone were the days of simply following a straight road north. Now they had to plot their way back to South America. The route they finally chose was far from direct, taking them back to Yosemite in California and on to Colorado, where they survived a blizzard before hirring the long straight roads of the southern states across to Florida.

Now it was time to make the physical and cultural leap back to South America. They took a ferry to Venezuela, and started the last leg of their journey: through the Brazilian rainforest to Manaus, the region’s main town. From there they loaded the Jeep on to a boat and sailed down the Amazon to Belém on the coast. Then they drove south, along the long coast road to Porto Seguro and home.

Their journey ended in April 2000, some 13 adventure-packed months after it had started. After 16 national borders, 2200 gallons of petrol, nearly 48,000 miles of road and not one puncture, they were home. "We will never be the same again," says Marco, "now we see everything in a different way.

"We carried 1,7601b of gear, and our route took us from sea level up to 13,000ft, at temperatures from -2C to 38C and through blizzards and hurricanes. Through it all, the Cherokee proved to be absolutely the best vehicle we could have chosen." The Jeep’s performance is just one of the reasons that Marco and Pedro are already happily planning their next trip. Asia is a possibility. For some, the phrase "It is better to travel than to arrive" is just a cliche; for the Mirandas it has become almost a personal creed.

THE PAN AMERICAN HIGHWAY

How you can drive accros the Americas As a concept, the pan american highway is a driver's dream, a 16,000 mile road trip that starts in the pretty Chilean town of Puerto Montt, some 600 miles south of Santiago, and continues north to the farthest reaches of Alaska. The reality though is 13 often nerve-wracking border crossings and pretty much every combination of climate and terrain, many of them extreme, which explains why it is such an irresistable challenge - and why so few people actually complete the whole journey. From Chile, follow the coast up through Peru, then on through Ecuador and Colombia until you reach the border with Panama. Here, a virtually impassable section of dense jungle forms the famous Darian Gap. But don't be deterred, you can boat-hop round it from the Pacific or Caribbean Coasts. Once you're in Central America, you may face mudslides, floods and bandits. After crossing the Mexican border into the United States, stick to the major roads in the western states and simply head north until you reach Canada. The route then takes you up through the Yukon via the 1422 mile long Alaska Highway. Until 1994 the tiny Alaskan town of Circle, 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle, was considered the end (or beginning) of the Pan-American Highway. But then the Dalton Highway was opened to tourists. This suspension-wrecking stretch of potholed gravel takes you as far north as you can go, to Prudhoe Bay on the coast of the Beaufort Sea. Plan your trip to arrive in summer, when temperatures nudge just above freezing and the sun never sets

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN THE SUMMER EDITION OF THE CHRYSLER "FREEDOM" MAGAZINE
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