The Treasure of “El Dorado”: The Guatavita Lagoon

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The Guatavita lagoon was one of the most sacred of the Muiscas, since the ritual of investiture of the new Zipa (Cacique- chief) was carried out there. This is one of the origins of the El Dorado Legend. The famous Muisca Raft that is exhibited in the Gold Museum of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia is evidence that this type of ritual was celebrated in the lakes of the region. Find out more about the museums of Colombia in The 117 Museums Guide of Colombia for Culture Travelers travel guide.

Guatavita comes from the Chibcha language GUA-TA-VITA, which translated into Spanish means “tillage of the tip” or “end of the mountain range”, as stated by the linguist Joaquín Acosta Ortegón in his Chibcha dictionary. The Chronicler Fray Pedro Simón, in his “Historical News”, said that Guatavita was called Guatafita, which means “thing set on high”, stating that it was the Spaniards who made the change from F to V to give it more phonetic sweetness to that name.

 

Origins of El Dorado Legend

According to the Muisca tradition, in Guatavita the cacique Sua was married to a beautiful princess from another tribe. Sua was very fond of chicha and bacchanals, and his wife, with whom he had a daughter, fell in love with a warrior who was courting her.

The lovers were caught by Sua, and he subjected the warrior to horrendous tortures, to the point of taking his heart out and serving it to his wife. The woman fled in despair, took her daughter in her arms and dove with her into the lagoon.

The cacique ordered the priests to recover his family. They informed him that the woman was now living under water, where a large snake had betrothed her. The cacique demanded that his daughter be brought to him, and they brought him a child without eyes. Sua, disheartened, returned her to the waters and ordered that from that day on, the best emeralds and gold filigrees be thrown into the lagoon (if you want to know about filigrees watch our video Santa Fe de Antioquia). The purpose of the ceremony was to beg the queen to ask the gods for prosperity and bonanza for her people.

Every full moon, Guatavita’s snake emerged from the waters to remind the people about the offerings, the priests watched his appearance as a sign of prosperity.

The Golden Indigenous

El Dorado Legend, gold statue at the Gold Museum, Bogotá, Colombia, picture by Pedro Szekely, from flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia.

With the Spanish invasion, the ritual acquired a new meaning. They were told that a ritual was carried out when a new cacique, usually the nephew, son of a sister of the previous cacique, was in power.

The heir prepared himself within a six years period before the ceremony. He had to purified himself through fasting, and confined himself in a cave where he could not see the sun or eat food with salt or chili.

Some chroniclers have narrated it this way:

“…In that Guatavita lagoon, a great raft of reeds was made, decorated as brightly as possible… They undressed the successor, smeared him with a sticky soil and sprinkled him with gold powder and ground, so that in the raft everything was covered with this metal…

The golden indigenous man made his offering by pouring all the gold and emeralds he carried into the middle of the lagoon, and the four chiefs who went with him did the same. During the way back to land in the raft, they started a party, with bagpipes and “fotutos”, with dances in their own way, with which ceremony they received the new cacique who was recognized as lord and prince …”

From this ceremony was taken that so celebrated name of El Dorado.

The Search for the Treasure

The history of the “golden indigenous” gave rise to the “El Dorado”, a mythical place that the conquistadors sought from the Andes to the Amazon, with such eagerness that within a week, in 1539, three expeditions led by Sebastián de Belalcázar, Nicolás de Federmán ​and Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, from Peru, Venezuela and Santa Marta, respectively, coincided in Guatavita.

There were several attempts to drain the lagoon to find its hidden treasures, among which the most important were that of Captain Lázaro Fonte, who was able to extract several pieces of fine gold, and that of Antonio de Sepúlveda in the 16th century, who also managed to remove emeralds and ceramic pieces.

In 1580, a merchant named Juan Sepulveda employed 5,000 indigenous men and dug a canal to drain it. The water level dropped as much as 20 meters, but then the canal collapsed and the King of Spain refused to continue financing the enterprise. Sepulveda had to abandon, despite having rescued several pieces of filigree and an emerald the size of a fist.

Unsuccessful attempts continued throughout the colony, but the legendary gold continues to fuel treasure hunters’ dreams to this day. In an old German book published in 1911, for example, there is even a photograph, supposedly real, of the totally drained lagoon.

In the book is narrated that some W. Cooper, representative of the English company Contractors Limited, had shown two German tourists photographs of objects taken from the lagoon as rings, snakes, frogs and men’s heads, made of gold. This Cooper told them that the value of the gold found since 1909 amounted to at least 500 pounds, which paid several times the investment of the expedition.

Recovery of Guatavita Lagoon

What is certain is that the Guatavita lagoon, when you visit it for the first time, is smaller than you could imagine… given the size of the legend!. But the sad thing is that this happened after it was emptied of more than half its contents by gold diggers, English and Germans, among others, until the end of the 19th century. These treasure hunters opened a hole in the mountain to drain the water to take out the gold pieces that rested at the bottom of the lagoon.

Fortunately, the failure of all these expeditions appeased the greed of the gold diggers. Initially, the place was reduced to abandonment, and at the beginning of the 21st century the park was closed to the public to try to recover it.

Today, a good part of its splendor has been reborn, with the frailejones, bromeliads, lichens, arnicas and multicolored mosses. The true treasure is the lagoon and the páramos of Colombia, because from there the water flows to all the surrounding regions.

Currently, the lagoon is located in an environmentally protected area where you can access a trail that crosses an impressive mountainous area, full of vegetation and typical species of the Colombian páramo.

We recommend you to visit the Guatavita Lagoon after visiting the Golden Museum in Bogotá. 

How to Get to Guatavita Lagoon

Guatavita town is located 75 kilometers northeast of Bogotá, bordering the municipalities of Sesquilé and Machetá to the north; Gachetá and Junín to the east; Guasca and Sopó to the south; and Tocancipá and Gachancipá to the west.

However, Guatavita Lagoon is 8 km from the road that borders the Tominé reservoir, besides the town.

The Guatavita lagoon today is a Regional Natural Reserve of the System of Protected areas of Colombia. Entrance fee for foreigners is around of 13,000 COP (3.5 USD). After paying, you will be led by a local specialized guide, in small groups, through a natural path along the paramo.

Local guides are from the Muisca community which still inhabits the region.

 

Accomodation near Guatavita Lagoon

You can find accommodation in the town of Guatavita or in the nearby parks associated with the reservoir circuit that exist throughout the region. This accommodation, offered by the parks, is of the shared cabin type, with a minimum cost of 215,000 COP (60 USD), depending on the number of people.

Recommendations

To enjoy it to the fullest, we recommend you take comfortable, warm and waterproof clothing, as the average temperature of the place is 13ºC and rainfall is frequent. However, none of this will prevent you from having a deep connection with nature and with the ancestral past that this lagoon hides, and that makes it an authentic cultural heritage of the country.

If you want to know more about Colombian nature tours, or want to visit Guatavita Lagoon, follow us, write us comments, or just contact us.

References

About the author

Sara Colmenares

Current director of Sula. Doctor in Biological Sciences. Her main interests are to explore and understand the organism – environment interactions, taking advantage of emerging knowledge for the management and conservation of species and ecosystem services. She is currently working as a consultant in functional ecology, ecosystem services and conservation projects in Colombia related to ecotourism and birdwatching.