【英语语言学习】在亚马逊河的旅游冒险

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

And because summer is here, many people will soon be taking a vacation. We hope yours will be everything that you want it to be. But what if it doesn't turn out so well? At least, what happens when travel dreams become travel nightmares?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: We're not talking about the airline lost my luggage or I got a flat on the interstate with two screaming kids in the back seat. We would like to hear about some true travel atrocities¹. To begin things off, one of our own, Peter Breslow, has a tale of woe² from a long-ago trip in Brazil, where he'd been wandering around on the cheap.

PETER BRESLOW, BYLINE³: So it's the late '70s, and I'm on a banana boat, chugging up the Amazon with my girlfriend - she's flown down from the States to travel with me. My visa's expired. I'm illegal in the country. I've been robbed of most of my cash and my passport. And I'd spent the last month recovering from hepatitis. So just before we get on the boat, I get a telegram from Lefty Monaghan (ph).

Lefty Monaghan - this is my childhood New Jersey⁴ friend. Turns out, he showed up in Rio - I didn't know he was coming - looking for me. And now he's on a 56-hour bus ride north to meet up with us.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As Lefty) Bres (ph), where are you?

BRESLOW: Lefty always calls me Bres. But I'm gone. I got to get out of the country before they arrest me. So my girlfriend and I get on this banana boat. Yeah, yeah, there were birds, kind of like that. It was literally⁵ the banana boat from hell.

The ride was just interminable. The Amazon was in flood. It was just this big, brown body of water. You couldn't even see the far shore. We chugged, chugged, chugged up the river at a - I'm not kidding - a walking pace. And you just spent your days staring blankly over the railing. The meals were beans, rice and meat - meat, rice and beans. But anyway, after about 10 days on the river - that's right, you can cut the sound now - we got to Manaus in the middle of the Amazon. But at this point, my girlfriend had enough. She got on a plane back to the States. She dumped me.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BRESLOW: And I was broke, so I got a room in the cheapest place in town. And it was a $1.50 a night. And I shared space with glassy-eyed travelers who'd been in the tropics too long and Tupamaro guerrillas from Uruguay. And, I mean, some of these guys still had bullet holes in their legs. And it was an awful insomniatic (ph) time. And I couldn't even get drunk because I was recovering from hepatitis. And you're not allowed to drink. So I just tossed and turned in my bunk⁶ every night. And finally, after about 10 days, I just had to get out of there. I could not wait any longer for Lefty.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As Lefty) Bres, wait up.

BRESLOW: So I got back on yet another banana boat.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS)

BRESLOW: That's right. Cue the birds. Now cue the putt-putt.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE)

BRESLOW: And, once again, chugged, chugged, chugged up the river, another interminable process of beans, rice and meat - meat, rice and beans. So anyway, I'm going up the river. And I don't know what's going to happen to me when I reach the border. And I finally - I get to the border. And I'm - you know, I'm very nervous. And turns out, the Brazilian authorities there could care less about my passport. They stamp me out. I'm great, you know. And so then I'm going to go get into Colombia. Finally, I'm getting out of Brazil. I cross this little bridge. I go to the crossing station. And the guard says to me - well, where's your tourist card? And I said - what tourist card?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BRESLOW: Turns out you needed a tourist card to get into Colombia. You had to get it back over the bridge in Brazil. But the offices were already closed. It was Friday afternoon. And there were going to be presidential elections on Monday. So I was stamped out of Brazil and not stamped into Colombia. And I spent the next four days just kind of in no man's land, wandering between the - Tabatinga, Brazil, and Leticia, Colombia and the whole time hoping that good old Lefty Monaghan was going to show up.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As Lefty) Hang on, Bres. I'm coming.

BRESLOW: And I'm sitting in a juice bar one of the days. And all of a sudden, there's a familiar, gangly figure walking down the street. And there is Lefty Monaghan. I ran up, gave him a hug. I was never so happy to see anybody in my life. And from there, things improved vastly.

We had found out that you could bribe⁷ your way onto an old DC-3 and get a flight out of Leticia to Bogota. So Lefty and I found the two pilots. We met them the next day. And we were going to fly in the cargo⁸ hold of the plane.

So the plane is full of these cardboard boxes. And the pilots are just kind of tromping through the boxes to get into the cockpit. I remember they're, like, stepping and crushing the boxes to get in. And it turns out, inside the boxes are these plastic bags full of tropical fish in water. And then in some of the other boxes, there are a bunch of bags of moldy⁹ Cheez Doodles.

So anyway, Lefty and I are lying on the boxes. It's a freezing cold cargo hold. There are these two Colombian guys on the plane. They break open the Cheez Doodles, pass around the bottle. The plane takes off. And we just skim along the jungle canopy¹⁰ on our way to Bogota, Colombia. My travel nightmare had ended.

SIMON: That's NPR producer Peter Breslow's travel nightmare. Yours doesn't have to be quite so epic¹¹. But we'd love to hear it. Go to WEEKEND EDITION SATURDAY at npr.org. Click on contact, and then start your story with the words travel nightmare.

1 atrocities   

n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪

参考例句：

• They were guilty of the most barbarous and inhuman atrocities. 他们犯有最野蛮、最灭绝人性的残暴罪行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The enemy's atrocities made one boil with anger. 敌人的暴行令人发指。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 woe   

n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌

参考例句：

• Our two peoples are brothers sharing weal and woe.我们两国人民是患难与共的兄弟。
• A man is well or woe as he thinks himself so.自认祸是祸，自认福是福。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 bunk   

n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话

参考例句：

• He left his bunk and went up on deck again.他离开自己的铺位再次走到甲板上。
• Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.大多数经济学家认为他的理论纯属胡说。

7 bribe   

n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通

参考例句：

• He tried to bribe the policeman not to arrest him.他企图贿赂警察不逮捕他。
• He resolutely refused their bribe.他坚决不接受他们的贿赂。

8 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

9 moldy   

adj.发霉的

参考例句：

• She chucked the moldy potatoes in the dustbin.她把发霉的土豆扔进垃圾箱。
• Oranges can be kept for a long time without going moldy.橙子可以存放很长时间而不腐烂。

10 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

11 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。