// El Dorado (Valencia, Spain) // with Hyuro

“El Dorado” ( Spanish for “the gilded one”) is the name of a Muisca tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and, as an initiation rite, dove into the Guatavita Lake. Later, it became the name of a legendary “Lost City of Gold”, that fascinated explorers since the days of the Spanish Conquistadors. No evidence for its existence has been found.

Imagined as a place, El Dorado became a kingdom, an empire, and a city of this legendary golden king. In pursuit of the legend, Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro departed from Quito in 1541 in an expedition towards the Amazon Basin, as a result of which Orellana became the first person known to have navigated the Amazon River along substantially its entire length.