América en Susurros

Muisca · Lake Guatavita, Colombia

El Dorado: the golden man of Lake Guatavita

October 26, 2026 · 19 min · Audio in Spanish, English, Portuguese

On Lake Guatavita, high in the hills northeast of Bogotá, an heir of the peoples we now call the Muisca went out on a reed raft, covered in gold dust, and offered that gold to the water: that is how don Juan, cacique of Guatavita, told it to the chronicler Juan Rodríguez Freyle. We follow, slowly, how that golden man became El Dorado, a city of gold that no one ever found.

Chapters

  1. 0:00A man covered in gold
  2. 0:53Freyle and don Juan of Guatavita
  3. 1:50Six years without the sun
  4. 2:42The reed raft and the braziers
  5. 3:54The heir covered in gold
  6. 4:45The banner and the silence
  7. 5:39How the ceremony was retold
  8. 6:39The stranger in Quito
  9. 7:31The prince who washed off the gold
  10. 8:24Castellanos and Simón: a king in verse
  11. 9:40Expeditions in search of El Dorado
  12. 10:44Ralegh and the city of Manoa
  13. 11:56The lake's fame and Lázaro Fonte
  14. 12:42Sepúlveda's cut
  15. 13:37Freyle and the jeque of another lake
  16. 14:23Pepe París and the English company
  17. 15:29The Pasca raft, 1969
  18. 16:37Gold as an offering
  19. 17:09The midnight offering
  20. 18:09The lake today

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