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It's day five of a research expedition to the Bailique Archipelago, and nothing has prepared me for the experience of this place, the easternmost end of the Rio Amazonas, where the planet's greatest river pours into the sea.
那是研究考察隊前進貝利克群島的第五天，對于會在這里體驗到什么，我毫無準備，這里是亞馬遜河的最東端，是全球最壯闊的河流注入大海之處。
I'm a university professor, a marine ecologist, and a Brazilian.
我是大學教授、海洋生態學家，也是巴西人。
I know this river discharges more water, when it finally reaches the ocean, than do the next six largest rivers in the world combined.
我知道，當這條河終于抵達大海的時候，它注入大海的水量會比僅次的六條大河加起來還多。
The Ganges, the Yangtze, the Congo, the Mississippi -- we could total the volume of all their waters' discharge, add in a few more famous rivers, and we would not yet equal the outpouring of the Amazon.
恒河、長江、剛果河、密西西比河--我們可以把這些河的水量統統加起來，再加上其他幾條知名的河流，都還是比不上亞馬遜河的水量。
This trip in February 2024 is my second research expedition to Bailique, the archipelago within the river mouth, where fresh water and salt water meet.
2024年2月的這趟旅行，是我第二次前往貝利克群島進行研究探勘，這個群島分布在河口里面，位于淡水與咸水交會的地方。
It's not like I have never been here before. Still, when I stare at the river from the tough little motorboat ferrying us between one village and the next, I can't comprehend its magnitude.
我以前也不是沒有來過。但從載著我們在村子之間來去的強悍小汽艇上眺望這條河的時候，我還是無法領會它的浩瀚。
My colleague Felipe Vieira and I keep talking about this, shouting at each other over the roar of the boat engine or sitting on the riverbank after we've tried to wash away the day's sweat and heat in the house where we've hung our sleeping hammocks.
我和同事費利佩·維耶拉一直在講這件事，在轟隆轟隆的引擎聲中對彼此大吼的時候，還有在我們掛吊床的屋子里設法洗掉當天的汗水和熟意之后、坐在河岸上的時候。
Like me, Felipe grew up in this country but so far from here that for him Amazonia was mostly a story, a cause, a part of the national history and imagination.
費利佩跟我一樣在這個國家長大，但是距離這里很遠，因此亞馬遜流域對他來說，基本上就是個故事，是個使命、是國家歷史以及想像的一部分。
I say: How can this be a river? It's absurd how huge it is. It feels like the ocean.
我說：這怎么可能是河？大得也太離譜了吧!簡直就是大海了。
Felipe says: The horizon, when I look across, is only water meeting sky.
費利佩說：那個地平線，我這樣看過去的時候，根本就只是水連著天。
This is not the Amazonia that most of us -- Brazilians, foreigners, nearly everybody except the people who live right here -- imagine when we call it to mind.
當大部分的人--巴西人、外國人，幾乎是所有人。除了住在這里的人以外--想到亞馬遜的時候，這不會是我們想像中的樣子。
Start with the colors: The water's surface appears as strange contrasting strips, precisely separated, bluegray or brown.
從顏色開始：水面呈現出奇怪的長條對比色水域，分界清晰，呈藍灰或棕色。
The colors swirl past each other like unmixed paint, or stretch side by side with borders straight as broomsticks.
這些顏色彼此打著漩渦，彷佛沒混合的顏料，不然就是并排延伸，邊界筆直得像掃帚柄。
The blue-gray is ocean salt water. The brown is river, darkened by natural sediment that has tumbled in for more than a thousand miles along the full breadth of the Amazon Basin, from rivulets in Andean cloud forests to the flooding tributaries of mid-basin lowlands.
藍灰色的是咸咸的海水。棕色的是河水，水色變深，是因為從安地斯山上云霧林里的小溪到流域中央低地的泛濫支流，在亞馬遜流域流淌超過1600公里長的過程中將掉進河里的天然沉積物不斷往前帶。
Plant detritus. Animal remains. Fragments of rock. It's such loaded river water, and there's so much of it that by the time it's coursing past the Bailique islands toward open sea, it resists blending with salt water to create the usual brackish estuary.
植物碎屑、動物殘骸、巖石碎片。這是一條承載了那么多的河，多到當這條河奔騰經過貝利克群島、流向開闊大海時，它拒絕混入海水、形成常見的微咸河口。
Instead, the fresh water of the Amazon pushes straight out into the Atlantic, pretty much intact, a river within the ocean.
相反，亞馬遜河的淡水直接往外沖進大西洋，幾乎原封不動，是汪洋中的一條河。
It heads north, guided by tidal currents, passing Guyana.
潮汐流引導著它朝向北方，流經圭亞那。
The Amazon River plume, oceanographers call it, or just "the plume." The plume hurtles along, river water and sediment held together by its own mass and propulsion, all the way to the Caribbean Sea.
亞馬遜河口羽流，海洋學家都這么稱呼，或簡稱為“羽流”。羽流一路奔馳，河水和沉積物因為自身的質量和推進力而雜持在一起，一路沖到加勒比海。
Every morning in our explorations here, Felipe and I start by riding the plume -- riding in and out of it, to be more accurate, our expert Bailique boatman, Chico da Silva, maneuvering through those weird strips of color.
我們在這里探勘期間，費利佩和我的每一天都是從乘著羽流航行開始--更準確一點說，是在羽流上駛進駛出，由我們老練的貝利克船夫奇柯·達·席爾瓦駕著船穿行在這些詭異色帶之間。
Often, his small boat bucks so hard in the turbulence that we grip the sides to hang on.
他的小船常在激流中猛烈起伏，我們要抓緊船緣才不會掉下去。
The questionnaires on our clipboards are printed on plastic sheets to protect from spray and humidity; there are also regular torrents of rain that commence all at once and then stop just as abruptly.
我們寫字板上夾的問卷是印在塑膠片上的，以免被水花和水氣弄濕；還常常發生來得急去得也快的暴雨。
The islands' people live in scores of scattered villages, so when Chico drops us at new docks, we walk up muddy wooden steps to the boardwalks that serve as street and sidewalk, and look for a local leader.
群島居民住在幾十個分散的村莊，所以當奇柯讓我們在又一個碼頭上岸時，我們會爬上泥濘的木頭階梯，走上既是馬路也是人行道的木板路，尋找當地領袖。
Then: Bom-dia, senhor.
接下來是一句“早安，先生?！?/div>
We are from the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo and part of a project researching ecosystems of the Amazon River.
我們是從圣埃斯皮里圖聯邦大學來的，在做一個亞馬遜河生態系的研究計劃。
(In Brazil we use the third person to express extra respect.)
（在巴西，我們會用第三人稱以表示格外尊重）。
Will the senhor approve our asking people in the senhor's community some questions?
先生愿意答應我們到先生的村子里問大家一些問題嗎？
We get the nod and head down the boardwalk with our clipboards. Calling to people as they rest on porches in the hot, wet air: Would the senhor/senhora like to be part of a study?
獲得首肯之后，我們就帶著寫字夾板走下木板路，對那些在潮濕悶熱的空氣中在門廊上休息的人喊著：“先生/女士愿意參加研究嗎？”
A few decline, too busy, not interested; more often they motion us over, wary but curious.
有少數人會拒絕，太忙了、沒興趣；但是通常他們會招手叫我們過去，帶著謹慎但好奇的態度。
We sit in doorways or on plastic chairs. The questions are simply worded.
我們會坐在門口或是塑膠椅上。問題都寫得很簡單。
How long have you lived here? How do you make use of the river, the ocean, the forest?
你住在這里有多久了？你怎么利用這條河、這片海、還有森林？
Some are simply worded but big. Tell me what worries you. Tell me what is changing.
有些問題寫得簡單，卻是大問題。告訴我你在擔心什么。告訴我什么事情不一樣了。
At night, when I'm in my hammock, I see them: the fishermen, the acai berry cultivators, the women with small children at their sides. Their stories keep me awake.
夜里，當我躺在吊床上。我會看到他們：漁民、種植巴西莓的農民、帶著小小孩的女子。他們的故事讓我囅轉難眠。
