【往期回顾】
【本期内容】
5 Most Dangerous Roads in the World
全球最危险的5条公路
You don't hear the expression that often anymore, but it used to be common to describe a haggard, worn-out and/or dissipated person as having a face like 7 miles of bad road. Or 20 miles. Or even 50 if the person looked truly awful.
你不再经常听到这个短语了，但它曾经被用来形容一个面容憔悴、疲惫不堪和/或精神恍惚的人，脸上看起来就像一条7英里长的烂路。或者20英里。甚至50英里，如果这个人看起来真的很糟糕的话。
But it would be really unkind to compare somebody's appearance to the five roads listed in this article. To be sure, there are plenty of bad roads all over the world, from the Arctic to the Australian outback. But these particular routes seem to appear most often on travel experts' cautionary lists of the most treacherous, often impassible and death-defying roads on the planet.
但是，将某人的外表与本文中列出的五条道路进行比较是非常不友好的。可以肯定的是，从北极到澳大利亚内陆，世界各地都有很多糟糕的道路。但这些特定的路线似乎最常出现在旅游专家的警示名单上，列出了这个星球上最危险、最难通行、最玩命的道路。
From the sand-strewn Trans-Sahara Highway to the forbiddingly rugged and winding North Yungas Road in Bolivia, you're strongly advised to take a detour around these highways. That is, unless you're a thrill-seeking adventurer. Or, like Balto the hero dog, you're trying to get diphtheria vaccine to some remote settlement.
从布满沙子的跨撒哈拉公路到玻利维亚崎岖曲折的北云加斯公路，强烈建议您绕行这些公路。也就是说，除非你是一个寻求刺激的冒险家。或者，就像英雄狗巴尔托一样，你正试图把白喉疫苗送到某个偏远的定居点。
5: Guoliang Tunnel, Taihang Mountains, China
5：中国太行山国梁隧道
In 1972, inhabitants of a remote mountain village performed one of the most miraculous feats in road-building history: They chiseled a tunnel three-quarters of a mile through a mountain for easier access to the outside world. Here, "easier" means easier than tiptoeing along a rocky footpath worn into the face of the mountain, which is what they had to do before they built the tunnel.
1972年，一个偏远山村的居民完成了公路建设史上最神奇的壮举之一：他们在一座山上凿出了一条四分之三英里长的隧道，以便更容易地通向外界。在这里，“更容易”的意思是比踮着脚尖沿着一条布满岩石且崎岖不平的小路攀岩而上更容易，这是他们建造隧道之前必须做的。
But the new passageway, whose name translates to "road that does not tolerate any mistakes," is only marginally less hair-raising. The tunnel's 15-foot (4.5-meters) high ceiling and 12-foot (3.5-meter) wide roadbed would be forbiddingly dark and claustrophobic had the builders not also carved periodic openings in the tunnel walls. The resulting view of the gaping abyss just a few feet away from your wheels is enough to make you forget all about how confined you are.
但这条新通道的名字翻译过来就是“不允许任何错误的道路”，真可谓令人毛骨悚然。如果建设者没有在隧道壁上定期雕刻开口，隧道15英尺（4.5米）高的天花板和12英尺（3.5米）宽的路基将是令人难以忍受的黑暗和幽闭恐惧。由此产生的离你的车轮只有几英尺远的深渊景象足以让你忘记自己是多么得局促受限。
4: Trans-Sahara Highway, Algiers, Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria
4：跨撒哈拉公路，阿尔及利亚的阿尔及尔至尼日利亚的拉各斯
Building a network of highways across Africa to promote much-needed economic development sounds like a fantastic idea. And being able to cross the Mediterranean via ferry from Europe, then drive from Algiers to Lagos would be great. And, maybe someday, when the Trans-Sahara Highway is completed, that'll be doable.
建立一个横跨非洲的高速公路网络，以促进急需的经济发展，这听起来是一个绝妙的想法。能够从欧洲乘渡船穿越地中海，然后从阿尔及尔开车前往拉各斯将是一件很棒的事情。也许有一天，当跨撒哈拉公路建成时，这将是可行的。
But for the time being, traveling on the 2,800-mile (4,506-kilometer) long, partially completed route remains a daunting task. Daytime temperatures are scorching, and fuel and water are in scarce supply along much of the route, so you'd better hope the needle doesn't touch "E" and that your radiator doesn't blow. And even the newly paved portions of the road often disappear under immense drifts of sand that block the route for days at a time.
但就目前而言，在2800英里（4506公里）长、部分完工的路线上旅行仍然是一项艰巨的任务。白天的温度很高，大部分路线上的燃料和水供应不足，所以你最好希望指针不要碰到“E”，你的散热器也不要吹。即使是新铺好的路段，也经常消失在巨大的沙子堆下，这些沙子每次都能挡住路线好几天。
3: M56 Kolyma Federal Highway, Magadan to Yakutsk, Russian Federation
3：M56科莱马联邦公路，马加丹至雅库茨克，俄罗斯联邦
This 1,200-mile (1,931-kilometer) long route is known in Russia as the "Road of Bones." It was built between the 1930s and the early 1950s by thousands of prisoners from Josef Stalin's Kolyma Gulag, who were deliberately overworked, starved to death and then buried beneath the route.
这条1200英里（1931公里）长的路线在俄罗斯被称为“骨头之路”。这条路线建于20世纪30年代至50年代初，由约瑟夫·斯大林的科莱马·古拉格的数千名囚犯建造，他们故意过度劳累，饿死，然后被埋在路线下。
Never a dependable road surface, over the decades it has fallen into a worse state of disrepair, with vast unpaved, rut-laden stretches. The Kolyma passes through some of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, with winter temperatures that drop to minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56 degrees Celsius). At times, the road is frozen solid. But bizarrely, it's easier to travel the road when it's frozen in the winter than when it's a treacherous sea of mud in the summer. To make matters worse, local officials warn that bandits have been known to attack unwary travelers.
它从来都不是一个可靠的路面，几十年来，它已经陷入了更糟糕的失修状态，有大片未铺路面、布满车辙的路段。科莱马号经过地球上一些最冷的有人居住的地方，冬季温度降至零下70华氏度（零下56摄氏度）。有时，道路会结冰。但奇怪的是，冬天结冰的时候比夏天泥泞的时候更容易上路。更糟糕的是，当地官员警告说，众所周知，土匪会袭击粗心的旅行者。
2: Halsema Highway, Baguio to Bontoc, Philippines
2：菲律宾碧瑶至邦托克的哈拉瑟马高速公路
One of the most scenic and also most hazardous stretches of road on the planet was built in the 1930s by a man named Euseibus Julius Halsema, a civil engineer from Ohio who moved to the Philippines shortly after the turn of the 20th century. Halsema eventually rose to become mayor and chief engineer for the city of Baguio, which was then a remote village with a few thousand inhabitants.
这个星球上风景最优美、也最危险的路段之一是由一位名叫尤塞巴斯·朱利叶斯·哈拉瑟马的人于20世纪30年代建造的，他是俄亥俄州的土木工程师，在20世纪初不久搬到了菲律宾。哈拉瑟马最终升任碧瑶市市长兼总工程师，当时碧瑶市是一个拥有数千居民的偏远村庄。
Halsema hoped to spur Baguio's growth by building a route called the Mountain Trail to Bontoc, the capital of Mountain Province.
哈拉瑟马希望通过修建一条名为“山间小道”的路线来刺激碧瑶的发展，该路线通往高山省的首府波托克。
These formations were fractured by a 7.8 earthquake in 1990 and subsequently have been further destabilized by erosion from typhoons. As a result, motorists are menaced not only by the continual threat of rock slides, but also by gaping, 40-foot (12-meter) deep erosion scars on the roadside. To make things even worse, sections are sometimes shrouded in mist that makes visibility dicey.
这些地层在1990年的7.8级地震中破裂，随后又因台风的侵蚀而进一步失去稳定性。因此，驾车者不仅受到岩石滑坡的持续威胁，还受到路边40英尺（12米）深的侵蚀疤痕的威胁。更糟糕的是，部分路段有时被薄雾笼罩，能见度很差。
1: North Yungas Road, Coroico to La Paz, Bolivia
1：玻利维亚科罗伊科至拉巴斯的北云加斯路
Most of the travel journalists who've written cautionary lists of the world's worst roads seem to agree that the North Yungas Road, a 40-mile (64.3- kilometer) long stretch of hell in Bolivia is the planet's ultimate nightmare for motorists. In 1995, the Inter-American Development Bank singled out the "Road of Death," as it is sometimes called, as the most dangerous route in the world.
大多数写过世界上最糟糕道路警示清单的旅游记者似乎都同意，玻利维亚40英里（64.3公里）长的北云加斯路是这个星球上驾车者的终极噩梦。1995年，美洲开发银行将有时被称为“死亡之路”的路线列为世界上最危险的路线。
It's not hard to figure out why. Built by Paraguayan prisoners of war in the 1930s, North Yungas mostly is a single, winding 10-foot (3-meter) wide lane carved out of the side of a mountain. Worse yet, on the way from Coroico to La Paz, the elevation drops sharply, from 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) to just more than 1,000 feet (304.8 meters). Add traffic -- including plenty of big, ungainly trucks and buses rolling downhill at frightening speeds and taking curves on two wheels - and you've got a heart-stopping surprise waiting around every bend. The one saving grace is that local custom grants uphill traffic the right of way.
不难理解为什么。北云加斯由巴拉圭战俘于20世纪30年代建造，主要是一条10英尺（3米）宽的蜿蜒小巷。更糟糕的是，在从科罗伊科到拉巴斯的路上，海拔急剧下降，从14000英尺（4267米）降至1000多英尺（304.8米）。再加上交通——包括大量又大又笨拙的卡车和公共汽车，它们以惊人的速度下坡，并用两轮转弯——每一个转弯处都会有一个令人心跳骤停的震惊等着你。唯一值得庆幸的是，当地习俗赋予上坡交通优先通行权。
【Source】www.mapquest.com
【Translated by】Spark Liao (廖怀宝)
【Illustration】From Bing
