Do you all know the legend of El Dorado? If not, read on, if you do then skip this part and and just look at the cool photos!
Basically it was among the Muisca that the legend of El Dorado was first heard by the Spaniards. They were told of a ritual ceremony that took place at Lake Guatavita, some distance to the North of Bogota. The lake appears mystical, mirror-calm, a perfect circle, surrounded by uniform, barren hills. The legend supplies the bottom of the lake with unimaginable treasures dumped there by the ancient Muisca to whom the lake was sacred. They believed that the spirit of a former chieftain’s wife lived in the lake, bound there by a terrible monster. A peculiar ritual on the lake was part of the acknowledgment of a new king. This account of the ceremony of El Dorado gave way to the persisting legend of the unimaginable wealth lying on the bottom Lake Guatavita. Attempts to drain the lake started almost immediately after the first rumor was passed on. Today the surrounding hills bare a curious notch carved by Antonio de Sepulveda, a Bogotan merchant, who, in the 1580’s, attempted to drain the lake to uncover the mythical wealth. The effort was abandoned when the hillsides caved in and covered and killed many of the workers, even though gold was discovered. The loot went to King Philip II of Spain.
It was not too long after these expeditions that the story of El Dorado was embellished with accounts of his golden city, the mythical Manoa where even the cooking utensils were made of gold. Explorers and adventurers took off on the hunch that the city was located somewhere in the unexplored forests of the Amazon valley, and vanished into the jungle, scores never returning.
Onto the photos! BTW - this was a trip organized by the Spanish Instructors at the Embassy.
Entrance to Guatavita Lagoon. This was REALLY beautiful but I had the settings all wrong on my camera and the photo washed out. Ah well!
Field of wild flowers. Just because I like them :o)
Again, random photo just because...
Here we are at the bottom but we will climb to the top. If you click the pic and enlarge it you might be able to see the group ahead of us near the top. Oh, and please do not forget that this is at about 9,000 ft. above sea level. Altitude sickness anyone?
The path, pretty isn't it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid explorer keeps interrupting me with "error reports"! I don't know what the deal is but apparently the rest of the photos will have to wait for another day because I really want to throw this computer OUT. THE. WINDOW!!!
1 comment:
soooo pretty!
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