Just a few hundred kilometres upstream from a desert city, the White Nile flows through a wholly different and stranger world. This is the Sudd. It's one of the largest swamps in the world. Sudd means ''The barrier''. Throughout history, anyone who tried to navigate this shifting landscape found it well named, and it still is. Arab and African worlds collide here. Southern Sudan has seen many civil wars, the latest raging for 20 years. Hostile geography and politics combine to keep the Sudd hidden from the outside world. The course of the White Nile becomes lost in an ocean of papyrus reeds.


流过某座沙漠城市后再向上游几百公里，白尼罗河正流经一片风貌迥异的奇特异境。这里就是苏德沼泽——世界上最大的沼泽地之一。苏德（Sudd）意为“障碍”。有史以来至今，任何试图穿越这块地形多变地区的人都发现它实在是名副其实。阿拉伯世界和非洲世界在这里相撞。苏丹南部发生过多次内战，最近的一场肆虐了20年之久。严峻的地形和纷乱的政治将苏德沼泽和外界隔绝开来。白尼罗河的航道逐渐消失在纸莎草的灌木汪洋之中。