http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/orella ... _flat.html
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado
El Dorado (Spanish for "the golden one") is a legend that began with the story of a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure mountain water.
El Dorado was also called as "The mystery of the golden man".
The legend originates in the Andes mountain region of present-day Colombia, where conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada first found the Muiscas, a nation in the modern day Cundinamarca and Boyacá highlands of Colombia, in 1537.
The story of Muisca rituals was brought to Quito by Sebastián de Belalcázar's men; mixed with other rumors, there arose the legend of 'El Dorado' (meaning the Golden Man rather than a place - 'el indio dorado', the golden Indian or 'El Rey Dorado', The Golden King).
Imagined as a place, El Dorado became a kingdom, an empire, the city of this legendary golden king. Deluded by a similar legend, Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro would depart from Quito in 1541 in a famous and disastrous expedition towards the Amazon Basin; as a result of this, however, Orellana became the first person to navigate the Amazon River all the way to its mouth.
