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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.
那是研究考察队前进贝利克群岛的第五天，对于会在这里体验到什么，我毫无准备，这里是亚马逊河的最东端，是全球最壮阔的河流注入大海之处。
I'm a university professor, a marine ecologist, and a Brazilian.
我是大学教授、海洋生态学家，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，当这条河终于抵达大海的时候，它注入大海的水量会比仅次的六条大河加起来还多。
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、长江、刚果河、密西西比河--我们可以把这些河的水量统统加起来，再加上其他几条知名的河流，都还是比不上亚马逊河的水量。
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月的这趟旅行，是我第二次前往贝利克群岛进行研究探勘，这个群岛分布在河口里面，位于淡水与咸水交会的地方。
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.
我以前也不是没有来过。但从载着我们在村子之间来去的强悍小汽艇上眺望这条河的时候，我还是无法领会它的浩瀚。
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.
我和同事费利佩·维耶拉一直在讲这件事，在轰隆轰隆的引擎声中对彼此大吼的时候，还有在我们挂吊床的屋子里设法洗掉当天的汗水和熟意之后、坐在河岸上的时候。
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.
费利佩跟我一样在这个国家长大，但是距离这里很远，因此亚马逊流域对他来说，基本上就是个故事，是个使命、是国家历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.
我说：这怎么可能是河？大得也太离谱了吧!简直就是大海了。
Felipe says: The horizon, when I look across, is only water meeting sky.
费利佩说：那个地平线，我这样看过去的时候，根本就只是水连着天。
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.
当大部分的人--巴西人、外国人，几乎是所有人。除了住在这里的人以外--想到亚马逊的时候，这不会是我们想像中的样子。
Start with the colors: The water's surface appears as strange contrasting strips, precisely separated, bluegray or brown.
从颜色开始：水面呈现出奇怪的长条对比色水域，分界清晰，呈蓝灰或棕色。
The colors swirl past each other like unmixed paint, or stretch side by side with borders straight as broomsticks.
这些颜色彼此打着漩涡，彷佛没混合的颜料，不然就是并排延伸，边界笔直得像扫帚柄。
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.
蓝灰色的是咸咸的海水。棕色的是河水，水色变深，是因为从安地斯山上云雾林里的小溪到流域中央低地的泛滥支流，在亚马逊流域流淌超过1600公里长的过程中将掉进河里的天然沉积物不断往前带。
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、动物残骸、岩石碎片。这是一条承载了那么多的河，多到当这条河奔腾经过贝利克群岛、流向开阔大海时，它拒绝混入海水、形成常见的微咸河口。
Instead, the fresh water of the Amazon pushes straight out into the Atlantic, pretty much intact, a river within the ocean.
相反，亚马逊河的淡水直接往外冲进大西洋，几乎原封不动，是汪洋中的一条河。
It heads north, guided by tidal currents, passing Guyana.
潮汐流引导着它朝向北方，流经圭亚那。
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.
亚马逊河口羽流，海洋学家都这么称呼，或简称为“羽流”。羽流一路奔驰，河水和沉积物因为自身的质量和推进力而杂持在一起，一路冲到加勒比海。
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.
我们在这里探勘期间，费利佩和我的每一天都是从乘着羽流航行开始--更准确一点说，是在羽流上驶进驶出，由我们老练的贝利克船夫奇柯·达·席尔瓦驾着船穿行在这些诡异色带之间。
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，我们要抓紧船缘才不会掉下去。
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.
我们写字板上夹的问卷是印在塑胶片上的，以免被水花和水气弄湿；还常常发生来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.
群岛居民住在几十个分散的村庄，所以当奇柯让我们在又一个码头上岸时，我们会爬上泥泞的木头阶梯，走上既是马路也是人行道的木板路，寻找当地领袖。
Then: Bom-dia, senhor.
接下来是一句“早安，先生。”
We are from the Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo and part of a project researching ecosystems of the Amazon River.
我们是从圣埃斯皮里图联邦大学来的，在做一个亚马逊河生态系的研究计划。
(In Brazil we use the third person to express extra respect.)
（在巴西，我们会用第三人称以表示格外尊重）。
Will the senhor approve our asking people in the senhor's community some questions?
先生愿意答应我们到先生的村子里问大家一些问题吗？
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?
获得首肯之后，我们就带着写字夹板走下木板路，对那些在潮湿闷热的空气中在门廊上休息的人喊着：“先生/女士愿意参加研究吗？”
A few decline, too busy, not interested; more often they motion us over, wary but curious.
有少数人会拒绝，太忙了、没兴趣；但是通常他们会招手叫我们过去，带着谨慎但好奇的态度。
We sit in doorways or on plastic chairs. The questions are simply worded.
我们会坐在门口或是塑胶椅上。问题都写得很简单。
How long have you lived here? How do you make use of the river, the ocean, the forest?
你住在这里有多久了？你怎么利用这条河、这片海、还有森林？
Some are simply worded but big. Tell me what worries you. Tell me what is changing.
有些问题写得简单，却是大问题。告诉我你在担心什么。告诉我什么事情不一样了。
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，当我躺在吊床上。我会看到他们：渔民、种植巴西莓的农民、带着小小孩的女子。他们的故事让我冁转难眠。
