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A new mapping system called what3words places Vorsprung durch Technik deep in the Brazilian jungle. We head off to find it in an Audi Q7

WRITER John SilcoxPHOTOGRAPHER Greg Pajo

K I N G P I N . B U I L D I N G . G O N EThe new Audi Q7 strikes a fine figure cruising through the tree-lined boulevards of Rio de Janeiro

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Three words can be very powerful. Take ‘I love you’, for example – by uttering this simple formula you can express your innermost feelings. It neatly wraps up a plethora of warm, strong and complex personal emotions one usually associates with their car soulmate. Vorsprung durch Technik is another case in point, albeit a German one. Audi’s famous expression sums up the brand’s core values of innovation through advanced materials, design and engineering.

But did you know that three words could also be a place? This is now possible thanks to a new mapping system and app developed in the UK called what3words. By dividing the globe into 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares, the system labels each area with three random words, which act as a unique address. So the centre of Big Ben is teams.living.bucket and the entrance to the Statue of Liberty is palm.shut.long. The idea is to make geo-referencing more human and to help make finding places more accurate and memorable, rather than relying on complicated longitude and latitude co-ordinates.

In addition to English, the app is available in eight different languages including German, and when you type in vorsprung, durch and technik, you’ll discover that these three words are randomly thrown together to pinpoint a place: more accurately, a 3-metre patch of Earth, deep in the middle of dense rainforest near to São Paulo, Brazil. What better way to test out the new Audi Q7 than venturing out on a South American road trip, to visit a place called Vorsprung durch Technik?

The adventure starts in Rio de Janeiro, some 300 miles away from our destination. Low clouds are burning off the tall granite mountains that tower above the concrete city and revealing the first golden rays of early morning sun. Cruising up Ipanema beach feels like being in a postcard: the blue sea is peeking out between the palm trees that border the empty road, and the only other traffic consists of semi-nude joggers running along the boardwalk beside us.

Further around the headland lies Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela or shantytown, but as we enter it reality

slaps us back in the face. The twisty road quickly narrows and disappears from view amid a warren of ragged houses that cling to the steep hillside and fly in the face of every building regulation ever invented. Exposed wires, breezeblocks and corrugated iron seem to be holding the place together while motorbike taxis, people and dogs block our path. It’s rush hour so we park up.

Nearly 20 per cent of the city’s poorest citizens live in favelas like this, some without running water or electricity. For years they have been run by dangerous drug gangs, so shoot-outs, vandalism and crime is commonplace. Our visit isn’t a test of bravery nor an error of navigation, but rather an opportunity to see what3words in action. It’s being used here in an interesting way to help improve the lives of locals.

‘Because the favelas developed illegally, many people don’t live on recognised streets and don’t have house numbers or official addresses,’ explains Carlos Pedro da Silva, the owner of Carteiro Amigo, a company that delivers mail to residents of Rocinha. ‘They can’t rely on the traditional post service, so that’s where we come in – taking parcels directly to their doorsteps.’

Most maps say there are only 15 roads in Rocinha but Carteiro Amigo, which translates as ‘friendly postman’, has charted more than 3000. Pedro adds: ‘Not having an address poses bigger problems than just dealing with deliveries. Without an address you will struggle to get a passport, stake a property claim, take out a bank loan or even run a business. But thanks to what3words, we can now give people accurate addresses.

In many favelas the influx of modern technology, such as smartphones and tablets, is bringing about social change by positively influencing those who use it.

‘New technology is giving favela inhabitants the right to be citizens,’ says Pedro. ‘It’s also speeding my work up. All I have to do now when I deliver a parcel is pull out my phone, type in their what3words and then follow the map to deliver it.’

Back in the Q7, we imitate him by connecting our smartphone to the Audi MMI (Multi Media Interface), opening up the app and searching for vorsprung.durch.

From top to bottom, left to right: Ipanema beach; the

main street in the favela of Rocinha; the what3words

app in action; Pedro the postman on his rounds;

a Brazilian motorway above the rainforest; an overhead view of Rocinha; Jefferson,

a roadside banana salesman

V O L U M E . R E LY . G U R UPedro the postman is a familiar face on the streets of Rocinha as he makes his delivery rounds on foot

G E A R B O X . S K I L L . F E A S T SMotorbikes are the main mode of transport in the favelas but the Q7 manages to carve a path for itself

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technik. Using Apple CarPlay we send the plotted route through to Google Maps, which displays on the retractable infotainment screen in the middle of the dashboard. According to the navigation system, without traffic or stop-offs the journey will take us just over ten hours: it’s time to hit the road.

We head westwards on a motorway out of the city and before long we’re climbing into our first high mountain range. The road is an incredible feat of engineering: long stretches are built on giant stilts that give you the impression it’s hovering above the treetops below. As we fly over dense rainforest, it becomes clear how this woodland got its name. The heavens open, and to make matters worse we are soon shrouded in thick cloud, too.

In these less-than-perfect conditions the Q7 comes into its own. The wide-blade automatic wipers cope efficiently with the heavy downpour and offer excellent visibility, which is enhanced by the all-weather headlights. Despite the alarming number of lorries straddling both lanes and the even more alarming number of hairpin bends, we press on in comfort.

Passing over the top of the range is an ear-popping experience, and the weather clears as we descend towards the coast. Ahead of us lies the stunning landscape of the Costa Verde: a captivating coastline

I N C R E M E N T A L . V O T E R . R E R E A DThe Q7 inspires confidence as it deftly handles the many twists and turns on the wet jungle road

stretching 350 miles from Rio to Santos, where virgin jungle mountainsides dotted with pink flowering trees dive into the blue-green sea. The well-maintained highway follows the sinuous shoreline and presents an ever-changing panorama of rocky outcrops, bays, islands, peaks and gushing waterfalls.

It’s not just the scenery that’s breathtaking: we step out of the cool, air-conditioned interior into 32C heat. Luckily Jefferson, a friendly roadside banana salesman, sells us some cool drinks and then offers up a few slices of jackfruit – an unnaturally large and spiky fruit with yellow, rubbery flesh that tastes like a mix of custard and bubblegum. Delicious.

A couple of hours of long, fast corners and stunning tropical scenery later, we arrive in Paraty, a small colonial town that hasn’t changed much since it was built by Portuguese settlers in the 1700s. It served as a port to transport gold back to Europe and its name means ‘river of fish’ in the language of the indigenous Guainas Indians, who lived there before colonisation. Although the gold trade stopped more than 100 years ago, fishing remains a vibrant activity, although not as vibrant as tourism, which is now the major industry.

Thousands of visitors come each year to enjoy the shabby charm of the town’s ancient white stone buildings with colourful doors and shutters. Many tourists also fall victim to the uneven flagstones that pave Paraty’s ancient streets – they’re notorious for breaking car axles as well as human ankles.

‘If you think the cobbles are bad, you should have tried driving here before they built the highway,’ laughs Jarbas Henrique dos Santos, an 85-year-old retired fisherman. ‘When I was growing up the only paved road to Paraty was the ancient gold trail, and it was in such a bad state that most people travelled by boat instead.’

After a stroll around town, we enjoy a delicious dinner of locally caught giant prawns, razor clams, mussels, squid and octopus, finished off by a few glasses of the local tipple: Cachaça, brewed from cane sugar. We sleep very soundly when we retire to our hotel.

AUDI Q7 3.0 TDI QUATTRO S LINE Price from £53,835 OTREngine 3.0 TDI 272PSTransmission eight-speed tiptronicDrivetrain quattro all-wheel drive0-62mph 6.5 secondsTop speed 145mphEfficiency 45.6mpg combined*, 163g/km CO2* * Standard EU test figure for comparative purposes and may not reflect real driving results. With 21-inch wheels. Car pictured is not to UK specification.

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G U E S S . H E L P E R . R E F I T T I N GThe rolling hills and man-made lakes give this area near Paraibuna a distinctly continental feel

C O L L E C T I V E LY . U N M I N D F U L . T A N N I N GThe sun sets over the Atlantic Ocean and the Q7 is parked on the beach overlooking the fishing fleet near Paraty

F L E X E D . C A U S WA Y . D I V I N E SThe coast of the Costa Verde stretches on for more than 350 miles between Rio and Santos, offering unparalleled views

From left to right, top to bottom: the interior of the Q7;

retired fisherman Jarbas Henrique dos Santos on the streets of Paraty, the Costa

Verde; seafood dinner; an Alpinia Jungle King flower; the

sunset over the Atlantic; the lakes near Paraibuna; some

local vehicles and a ferryman

IPAD EXTRATo see the film of our Brazil trip, download the Audi Magazine iPad app

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The next day we are greeted by yet more sunshine and follow the coastal road through prime surfing country. Dozens of small beaches dot the coast, offering up perfectly barreling waves for those brave enough to dare. This is Brazil’s bohemian heaven, and you can sense that heading off the beaten track has become a lifestyle choice that many aspire to.

Mid-morning, we cross the Tropic of Capricorn, head inland away from the sea and arrive in a dramatically different landscape of lakes, gentle foothills and pastures dotted with rearing cattle. If it wasn’t for the warm weather and ochre-coloured soil, you might mistake it for Wales or Italy. The lakes turn out to be one giant man-made reservoir barring our way. Created 40 years ago by damming a number of local rivers, it covers 72 square miles.

The only way across is by ferry – and when it turns up, it looks suspiciously flimsy. Although the crew assure us that it can float up to 45 tonnes safely, we’re glad our Q7 is lighter than its predecessor, weighing just 2060kg. This improves the vehicle’s handling, comfort and fuel efficiency, as well as ensuring we all stay dry. Especially as a giant logging truck turns up just before we leave and threatens to sink us.

On the other side, the road deteriorates and turns into beaten earth in some sections until we reach the small village of Salesópolis, where we stop off to brim up with diesel. Despite a stop-start time in Rio, and all the steep hills, the muscular 3.0 TDI V6 engine in our car proves extremely frugal.

A few miles further, the sat nav takes us off the road onto a dirt track. This is the last stretch of the journey: there are less than 20 miles to go, but these will be harder than anything we have done before. The path cuts across the hills like a scar, leading into dense undergrowth. A rustic affair composed of giant chunks of roughly smashed granite, it was built so that large all-terrain trucks could pass with machinery to dig a gas pipeline across the Serra do Mar National Park.

It’s impossible to go any faster than 10mph on this terrible surface, and in large areas we are reduced to a

crawl, yet still we make progress. Halfway down we meet Benedito da Souza Junior, a solitary figure out walking his horses. Benedito reveals he was once part of a crew that built the road, but in retirement prefers to travel on horseback when coming out to the forest. ‘These tracks are made for all-terrain lorries, not cars,’ he explains. ‘The terrible surface shakes chassis apart and the large ruts and trenches wreck suspensions. Horses are more reliable and can go places most cars can’t.’

All the same, we would rather put our faith in the Audi’s horsepower – all 272PS of it. Having 600Nm of torque at your disposal makes some tricky situations easier, especially when it’s delivered through the car’s quattro all-wheel-drive system. Hill descent control also proves its weight in gold when crossing deep gullies and other areas where the road falls down the mountainside.

Finally, after some incredibly challenging driving, we reach a point where we need to head off-road, across low shrubs and uneven earth. We go as far as we physically can before we’re stopped by the dense vegetation. Vorsprung.durch.technik lies just ahead of us, but without the navigation system we probably would have missed it. It’s simply a three-metre-square patch of perfect jungle, with trees, vines, butterflies and flowers – not unlike the thousands of square miles of rainforest around it.

Celebrating our arrival, we pause to contemplate the view. London feels very far away and being faced with the raw beauty of undisturbed nature is incredibly awe-inspiring. It seems amazing that simply typing Audi’s motto into a mobile phone app has lead us to this unique part of the world: luckily the random nature of what3words didn’t indicate a council dump in Skegness or a cesspit in New Delhi. There’s no doubt that in the Q7 we would have still arrived at our destination but the pictures would be much less pretty.

You can read more about the Audi Q7 on page 90. To arrange a test drive, contact your local Audi Centre. You can download what3words from the App Store

From left to right, top to bottom: Benedito with his

horse Faisca; the Q7 crossing the rough track; a tame emu; a rustic chapel; the rainforest

of the Serra do Mar National Park

C R O S S WA Y S . T E M P L A T E . G I B B E R I N GBrazil is a predominantly Catholic country, and even in the most remote parts there are churches and chapels

V O R S P R U N G . D U R C H . T E C H N I KOur final destination: amid the lush rainforest hides three square metres that are designated by Audi’s famous slogan

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