2018.11.18纽约时报：探秘摩洛哥小山村 时间在这里凝固
A journey to a Moroccan village frozen in time
探秘摩洛哥小山村 时间在这里凝固
Our vehicle wound ever higher up the earthen road cutting through Morocco’s High Atlas mountains. Below me, the red soil spilled like wine between green dots of forest and sheets of white snow. I lost myself in the dizzying beauty of North Africa’s tallest peaks, and as I nervously peered out of the window, I saw there was no guardrail separating us from the sharp ledge and distant valley below.
我们进入摩洛哥高阿特拉斯山脉（High Atlas mountains），汽车沿着蜿蜒的盘山土路攀升。在我下方，红色的土壤像葡萄酒一样泼洒在点点簇簇的绿色森林和一片片白雪上。北非最高峰的美景令我沉醉。我时不时紧张地望向窗外，发现我们就在没有护栏的悬崖峭壁和深不见底的山谷之间行驶。
Our journey had started an hour earlier at the base of the mountain along an ancient caravan trail that connects Marrakech and the Sahara. Centuries ago, this trans-Saharan trade route had brought gold, ivory and cloth from places like Timbuktu, Sudan and Ghana to the North African coast. Today, the once-proud villages sprinkled along this winding road are little more than shantytowns, where weary travellers can buy grilled meat outside open shacks and cafes.
我们从山脚下一个基地出发，沿着连接马拉喀什（Marrakech）和撒哈拉沙漠的古老商道，提早了一小时上路。几个世纪以前，这条跨撒哈拉的贸易线路将廷巴克图（Timbuktu），苏丹和加纳等地的黄金，象牙和布匹带到北非海岸。今天，这条蜿蜒的道路沿线散落的那些曾经风光一时的村庄，几乎都变成了棚户区，疲惫的旅客们可以在那里的棚屋和咖啡馆外买烤肉。
I had stopped at one of these villages, Taddert, that morning, clutching a faded copy of Berber Village: The Story of the Oxford University Expedition to the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Published in 1959 and written by expedition member Bryan Clarke, the book is an account of a remarkable 17-day expedition undertaken by five students in 1955 from Oxford to a remote village called Idihr. The youths travelled in an ex-army truck in hopes of studying the geography, wildlife and customs of this far-flung corner of the Arab world’s tallest mountain range.
这天早晨，我在其中一个叫塔德特（Taddert）的村子停车休息，攥着一本书页翻黄的书《柏柏尔村：牛津大学探险队远征摩洛哥高阿特拉斯山脉的故事》（Berber Village：The Story of the Oxford University Expedition to the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco）。这本书出版于1959年，作者是探险队成员布莱恩·克拉克（Bryan Clarke），记述了五名学生1955年历时17天从英国牛津前往一个名为伊戴尔(Idihr)的摩洛哥偏僻村庄的非凡探险经历。那些年轻人当年乘坐一辆退役的军用卡车，进到位于阿拉伯世界偏远一隅的最高山脉，研究那里的地理、野生动植物和风俗民情。
Their journey took place during times of civil unrest. Morocco had been a French protectorate since 1912, but following the exile of Sultan Mohammed V in 1953, violence had erupted and colonial authorities were ruthlessly cracking down on Moroccan nationalists. By the time the students crossed from England to San Sebastián, Spain, and prepared to venture through Gibraltar into Morocco in the summer of 1955, French occupation was on its last legs and the country's future was uncertain.
他们的旅行正值当地内乱时期。摩洛哥自1912年以来一直受法国庇护，但是苏丹穆罕默德五世流亡后，爆发了反殖民主义的暴力抗议，殖民当局对摩洛哥民族主义者无情镇压。当这些牛津学生从英格兰前往西班牙的圣塞巴斯蒂安，准备在1955年夏天冒险穿越直布罗陀海峡前往摩洛哥时，摩洛哥几乎已全部在法国控制之下，前途未卜。
When the students arrived in North Africa, they sought help from Morocco’s ruler, T’hami el-Glaoui, to find a suitably remote village for their research and protection as they travelled. Before becoming the Pasha of Marrakesh in 1912, el-Glaoui had been dubbed the 'Lord of the Atlas’ and ruled over the caravan route cutting through the mountains in southern Morocco. His palace had been the fabled Kasbah in Telouet in central Morocco, and at the time of his death in 1956 he was one of the richest men in the world.
抵达北非后，为了寻找一个适合他们开展研究的偏僻村庄，并且在旅行期间获得保护，探险队学生向摩洛哥统治者泰米尔·格拉维(T'hami el-Glaoui)求助。格拉维1912年成为马拉喀什的帕夏（古代阿拉伯的高级官衔）之前曾被称为“阿特拉斯王”，一手控制着贯穿南摩洛哥山脉的商道。他的宫殿就是传说中的摩洛哥中部堤路特卡斯坝城堡(Telouet Kasbah，又译特鲁埃城堡)。1956年去世的时候，他是世界上最富有的人之一。
After ferrying and driving to the High Atlas mountains from Oxford, the students spent the night at the el-Glaoui's kasbah. This was the end of the road, so a local sheikh arranged for a caravan of mules to carry their luggage while the students walked some 35km from Telouet to Idihr.
学生们从牛津出发，乘渡轮、驾车，辗转抵达高阿特拉斯山，在格拉维城堡过夜。这已经是道路的尽头。当地一位酋长安排了一个骡车队帮他们驼行李，学生们自己从堤路特徒步35公里前往伊戴尔。
Like the students, I had come to Morocco for an adventure of my own. After living in the US for a decade, I travelled to the country in hopes of writing a novel. One day while rummaging through a library in Casablanca, I discovered a copy of Berber Village. As I read, I became enthralled by the trials and tribulations these five young adventurers faced – among them a Moroccan interpreter and an aspiring zoologist, ethnologist, geographer and botanist.
和那些学生一样，我独自来摩洛哥冒险。在美国生活了10年后，我到摩洛哥旅行，希望能写一部小说。一天，我在卡萨布兰卡一个图书馆发现了这本《柏柏尔村》。我被书中5位年轻的冒险家面临的考验和磨难吸引了，他们是摩洛哥语翻译家、抱负远大的动物学家、民族学家、地理学家和植物学家。
During their 17-day journey, according to the book, the students slept on a British official’s veranda, met legendary explorer Wilfred Thesiger and were nearly held captive by bandits in Marrakech. After eventually reaching Idihr, they camped for seven weeks as they researched. Their main funding came from Oxford University’s Exploration Club, which allowed them to buy the truck, and a £100 advance payment from National Geographic for a future article.
根据书中所述，在17天的旅途中，学生们曾在一位英国官员家的阳台上睡觉，遇到过传奇探险家塞西格(Wilfred Thesiger)，几乎被马拉喀什的土匪绑架，最终抵达伊戴尔。他们在那里露营了7个星期开展研究。他们的主要资金来自牛津大学的探险俱乐部，他们用这笔钱买了卡车。《国家地理》杂志向他们预支了100英镑的稿费。
In the weeks before setting off, the students had stockpiled huge numbers of ready-made meals, penicillin and toilet paper in their boarding rooms. Clarke was eventually waved off by the elderly landlady he was staying with, who gave him a sack of homemade sandwiches for his trip.
出发前几个星期，学生们在宿舍里储备了大量即食食品、青霉素和卫生纸。最后，克拉克（书的作者）和他的房东老太太挥手告别，她为他准备了一袋自制的三明治。
The students had chosen Idihr because of its remote location high in the folds of the Atlas mountain range. They wanted to find somewhere untouched by modernity to study the beliefs and agricultural practices of a remote Maghreb society. The students pitched their tents by a stream that flowed near a large walnut tree below the village.
学生们选择伊戴尔是因为它位于非常偏远的阿特拉斯山脉的高处。他们希望找到一个不受现代世界影响的地方研究偏远的马格里布社会的信仰和农业实践。他们把露营帐篷搭在村子下面一条小溪旁，溪流附近有一颗核桃树。
As the weeks passed, Clarke writes, a gradual friendship formed between the two disparate groups. The students invited the djellaba-robed villagers into their tents for tea, and the villagers hosted them in their simple brick houses, where they offered the university students slow-cooked tagines. The villagers soon revealed a communal belief in animism and genies and began to see the students, who shared their penicillin, as magic healers.
克拉克写道，随着时间的流逝，两个不同的群体之间逐渐产生了友谊。学生们邀请这些穿吉拉伯(djellaba)长袍的村民来帐篷里喝茶，村民们也在他们简单的土砖房里招待学生，给他们奉上慢煮塔吉锅炖菜(Tagine)。这些村民很快显现出他们共同的泛灵信仰和精灵崇拜，并把分享青霉素的学生视为魔法治疗师。
The more I read of Clarke’s account, the more curious I became to find out what had happened to Idihr. Did it still exist? I looked on Google Maps and asked locals in Marrakech in Arabic, but no-one could find any trace of it. I even contacted Clarke’s widow and asked if any of the team had ever gone back. Clarke had not and she wasn’t sure about the others, or if they were still alive.
读着克拉克的记述，我越发好奇伊戴尔究竟发生了什么。它还存在吗？我查看谷歌地图，并用阿拉伯语向马拉喀什当地人询问，但是没有人能找到任何线索。我甚至联系了克拉克的遗孀，询问团队中的其他人后来是否回到过这里。克拉克没有回来过，但是她无法确定其他人是否回来过，也不知道他们是否还活着。
The tiny dot of a village seemed to have disappeared from modern maps, and the only evidence of its former location was a hand-sketched outline in Clarke's book, which placed it roughly 16km from the town of Zerkten and between the villages of Taddert and Telouet in the Al Haouz province. I wasn't sure if it had changed names or vanished altogether, but I was determined to find out if it still existed.
这个小村庄似乎已经从现代地图上消失了；它所在位置的唯一证据就是克拉克书中手绘的草图。书中的小村子位于豪兹省（Al Haouz）的塔德特（Taddert）和堤路特（Telouet）两个村子之间，距离则库腾镇（Zerkten）大约16公里。我不确定它是改了名字还是彻底消失了，但我决定去查明它是否还存在。
Taddert appeared to be the closest village on modern maps to where Clarke had placed Idihr, so I drove three hours to the settlement from Marrakech with a driver who served as my interpreter to ask about Idihr's fate.
塔德特似乎是现代地图上离克拉克标注的伊戴尔最近的村庄。我从马拉喀什驱车3小时去到那个村落，一名司机给我当的翻译，帮我询问伊戴尔的命运。
A group of men gathered around us and stared at Clarke's book, as my driver and I repeated the village’s name. They studied the hand-sketched map and, finally, someone pointed to the mountains in the distance. Then, a kind-hearted car mechanic, Karim, who had been hovering nearby, came to my rescue. Idihr existed, and he was going to get me there.
I waited in a roadside cafe in Taddert with Clarke’s book open on the table while Karim made a call to a friend. Our impromptu expedition was to consist of myself, my driver, Karim and his friend, who had the biggest car around: a 4x4 capable of climbing up the mountains.
我在塔德特的一个路边咖啡馆里等着，桌上打开着克拉克的书，卡里姆打电话给他的朋友。我们临时组成了探险队，成员包括我自己、司机、卡里姆和他的朋友。这个朋友有这一带最大的汽车：一辆四轮驱动能翻山越岭的车。
But an hour into our treacherous ascent, as we climbed higher and higher and the wheels of the car turned too close the mountain’s ledge, I couldn’t take it any longer. Too scared to continue, I begged the driver to stop, slammed the door shut and began marching back down the mountain in a trail of dust before the car turned around to pick me up.
但是，经过一个小时惊险的攀升后，我们爬的越来越高，车的轮子太靠近山的峭壁，我实在无法继续忍受惊恐，便求司机停车，我下车后重重地关上车门，沿着一条灰土路往山下走。不一会会儿，汽车掉过头来把我接上。
I was disappointed with myself, but I had discovered that Idihr existed. Now, I just needed to find a different way to get there. Karim, my driver and I drove back from Taddert towards Marrakech that evening. Karim assured me he would try to find a less dangerous route to the village and insisted I owed him nothing in return.
我对自己很失望，但是已经发现伊戴尔还存在。现在我只需要找到通向那里的另一条路。那天晚上我和司机、卡里姆一起从塔德特开车回了马拉喀什。卡里姆向我保证他会找一条不那么危险的路，并坚持不会向我索要任何回报。
A few days later, I received a call from him. He had decided we would take the 4x4 but try a different road. As much as I would have liked to recreate the students' 35km trek from Telouet, it was too treacherous, so I put myself in Karim's hands to find another way there.
几天后，我接到了他的电话。他决定我们仍可以乘他的四驱车，但可以尝试走一条不同的路。尽管我本来希望重走当年学生们从堤路特出发时步行的35公里路线，但那条路太危险，所以我听从了卡里姆，去找另一条通往那里的路。
We set off seven days later. As Karim, myself and our driver left Marrakesh behind and travelled along mountain roads, the old caravan route paved our way towards the snow-capped mountains. Women washed clothing in ditches, carpets blew in the wind at roadside stalls and donkeys trotted freely by half-built houses.
7天后，我们出发了。卡里姆、我和我们的司机离开马拉喀什，沿着山路前行，棚车商道在我们眼前向白雪皑皑的山麓延展。妇女们在水渠里洗衣服，路边小商铺的毯子在风中飘扬，毛驴在尚未建成的棚屋周围自由的徜徉。
After three hours, we turned off the caravan route and approached Taddert from the opposite side of the mountains as we had on our previous trip. Although Idihr was less than 20km away, the ride took several hours, as we clambered up switchbacks and crossed rivers at a snail's pace. We were alone on a dirt track as the peaks of the High Atlas rose and fell around us. Finally, the tiny village came into view: a cluster of simple brick homes nestled just up the bank from a mountain-fed stream.
3小时后，我们离开了商道，从山的另一侧抵达塔德特。虽然那里离伊戴尔不到20公里，但是却花了好几个小时，因为我们走了盘山路，然后又用蜗牛般的速度过河。我们一路没有遇到其他人，在高阿特拉斯山脉高低参差的群峰中穿行。终于，这个小村子进入了眼帘：一组简陋的砖房汇聚在一条山涧的岸边。
Karim greeted the locals in both Arabic and an Amazigh (also known as Berber) dialect. Djellaba-robed men emerged from their homes, and women in bright skirts and headscarves hid from me. It seemed they were not used to foreign visitors. I stumbled through gardens and past goats. A trail of children followed me to the stream below the village as I found the walnut tree Clarke described. The village was made up of short, sandy-coloured houses arranged around a square. A row of these brick homes was still perched on a ledge above the stream and looked identical to the students’ images from the book.
卡里姆用阿拉伯语和阿玛齐格方言问候当地人。穿吉拉伯长袍的男人们从各自的家里冒了出来，传着鲜艳的裙子、戴着鲜艳头巾的女人们却躲着我。看来她们还不习惯外国游客。我绕过花园和山羊群。一群孩子跟着我来到村子下面的溪流旁，我在那儿找到了克拉克书中描述的核桃树。这个村子由围绕着广场依次排开的褐色矮房子组成。溪流上方的岩石层上还有一排这样的砖房，和书中的图片几乎完全一样。
The villagers brought out black-and-white photographs from a foreigner who had stopped here years earlier. I asked to photograph the women and they stared at the images on my iPad's screen in wonder; there were no mobile phones or cameras here. I showed them a copy of Berber Village and asked if anyone remembered the students, but no-one had ever seen the book before. A few residents recognised pictures of deceased villagers inside.
村民们拿出了早些年一个到此停留过的外国人拍摄的一些黑白照片。我要求拍摄这些村妇，她们惊奇地盯着我的iPad屏幕上的图像 —— 那里没有手机也没有相机。我给她们看了《柏柏尔村》书里的照片，询问有没有人记得这些学生，但是没有人见过这本书。一些村民在照片上认出了一些已故的人。
Nothing much seemed to have changed in Idihr from the book’s account, except that now a van sporadically drove villagers to Taddert. People worked the land, just as they had always done. They still feasted on slow-cooked meat and vegetable dishes in tagine pots. One was laid out for me that afternoon. There was one unplugged old TV in a communal space, and aside from a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs, the villagers didn't seem to have much. And according to Karim and the driver, they still bought goods from wandering taleb ‘magic men’ in hopes that they would bring them good fortune.
除了偶尔有一辆面包车把村民载到塔德特，伊戴尔和书中记载的一模一样，几乎没有什么改变。人们在土地上耕作，就像从前一样。他们吃的还是用塔吉锅慢炖的肉和蔬菜。那天下午他们为我炖了一锅。在公共场所有一台不插电的旧电视机，除了头上的屋顶和身上的衣服，村民们似乎也没有太多财产。据卡里姆和司机说，村民们仍然从四处流浪的塔利布"魔法人"那里买东西，希望能给自己带来好运。
I spent an afternoon in the village, leaving before dusk fell. Idihr was not en route to anywhere – it was so hard to reach and so small that unless you got lost looking for the now-crumbling Kasbah of Telouet, you’d never find it. But now that I had, I dreamed of one day returning to the village to camp, just as the students had done.
我在村子里逗留了一个下午，直到黄昏降临才离开。伊戴尔不在通往任何地方的途中。它如此难以抵达，又如此的小，除非你在寻找摇摇欲坠的堤路特卡斯坝城堡时迷路了，否则永远找不到它。但是，现在我来过了，还梦想着有一天能回到村里露营，就像学生们曾做过的那样。
I didn’t have the funding of a university or a magazine, but I had proven that a traveller with a healthy dose of determination could still be an explorer in today’s world. I might not have been the first to discover Idihr, but thanks to the kindness of strangers, I felt as if I had rediscovered a tiny secret hidden from sight and frozen by the slow march of time in the mountains.
我没有获得某个大学或哪家杂志社的资助，但是我证明了，只要有足够的决心，一个旅行者仍然可以成为当今世界的探险家。我可能不是第一个发现伊戴尔的人，但是多亏了陌生人的善意，我觉得自己仿佛重新发现了一个隐藏于现实之外、凝固在崇山峻岭的缓慢时间中的小秘密。
