跟随无人机 深入中国沙漠化重灾区(上)

The scenery is breathtaking, but I feel helpless: We’re a half-hour drive from where we need to be, and the sunset means that my assignment — along with the limited time left on my visa — is slipping away from me.

景色令人惊叹，我却感到无助：我们离要去的地方还有半个小时的车程，日落意味着我的任务——以及我签证上剩下的有限时间——正在从我身边溜走。

The truth is, the drivers here aren’t accustomed to journalists.

事实是，这里的司机对记者不熟悉。

Their usual customers are tourists looking for a roller-coaster ride through the dunes —

他们的顾客通常是想坐一次沙丘过山车的游客。

which explains the death metal blasting from the radio and what seems to be a broken axle.

这也解释了收音机里传出的死亡金属以及现在遇到的问题：似乎是一根轮轴断了。

The music should have been my first clue.

那音乐应该是给我的第一个提示。

But now, halfway to Moon Lake, we’re watching the sun go down,

但现在，在离月亮湖还有一半路的地方，我们只能看着太阳渐渐落下。

and I’m missing the opportunity to make the picture.

我正在错失拍摄机会。

Getting here wasn’t easy: a 14-hour red-eye flight to Beijing, a two-hour plane ride to Yinchuan (after a series of cancellations and delays because of summer thunderstorms — along with a four-hour nap in an airport hotel), a two-hour drive to the edge of the Tengger, and a rapid price negotiation to get a dune-capable vehicle.

一路来到这里不容易：先是坐14个小时的红眼航班到北京，然后坐两个小时的飞机到银川（在这之前因为夏季雷雨，航班多次被取消和延迟起飞，我还在机场的一家宾馆小睡了四个小时），之后再坐两个小时的汽车到腾格里沙漠边缘，最后再经过一场匆忙的讨价还价，找到一辆能在沙丘地带行驶的车。

Making the pictures hasn’t proved easy, either.

事实证明，拍摄也并非易事。

For traveling purposes, I had brought along a relatively small drone, and I knew it would be a trade-off: Smaller and lighter means it is more susceptible to being swept up in a windstorm, which would make the footage unusable.

因为是出差，我带了一台相对较小的无人机，我知道这是一种妥协：更小、更轻意味着更容易被卷进风暴中，导致画面素材不能用。

We also have to get very creative when launching and landing the drone to ensure minimal sand exposure.

我们还必须在无人机的起飞和着陆上想些办法，尽可能少碰到沙子。

I’d already ruined one in an assignment months before by getting sand in the motor.

几个月前，我就已经在执行一次任务时报废了一台无人机，因为马达里进了沙子。

I couldn’t risk having that happen so early in this trip to China.

我可不能在此次中国之行一开始就重蹈覆辙。

How did I end up here? We’d chosen this exact spot, from back in New York, months earlier.

我怎么来了这里呢？几个月前，我们就在纽约选定了这个地方。

A group of editors on the graphics desk and I had sat down with a map of the Tengger, after hearing suggestions from Edward Wong, the Beijing bureau chief.

听到北京分社社长黄安伟(Edward Wong)的建议后，图片编辑部的一群编辑和我坐在一起，研究一幅腾格里地图。

We were looking for communities along the edge that might be affected by the desert’s changing footprint.

我们想在沙漠边缘寻找可能受到沙漠足迹不断变化影响的社区。