The Legend of El Dorado 2

After much negotiation with the Spanish government, Orellana secured the much needed support and set out on the second expedition to find the real El Dorado. He still had the scary memory of the first failed attempt and he desperately wanted this second attempt to succeed. His reputation was in line as he was preparing his troop to begin the journey.

On May 11, 1545, Oriana departed from Spain bringing with him 300 men, four ships, and supplies to build an additional two ships when they got to the mouth of the Amazon River. These additional ships would help them navigate up the Amazon River.

They first sailed to the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands where they spent a few months loading up more supplies and recruiting more men to join in the expedition. They then traveled to Cape Verde, which was also an Island under the control of Spain, and this is where everything started going wrong.

Orellana lost 98 of his men due to an epidemic in Cape Verde, because he had lost many of his sailors, he decided to abandon one of his ships entirely and cross the Atlantic Ocean with just three ships. He had lost a lot of supplies in the ship he had abandoned but he was still determined to succeed. Crossing the Atlantic became disastrous, as one of Orellana's ships was blown away taking with it 77 men and many supplies, the remaining ships managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

On December 20, 1555, Orellana arrived on the east coast of Brazil with 2 ships and less than 100 men. After arriving in Brazil, they failed to locate the entrance of the Amazon River and ended up traveling for over 300 miles without finding a way into the Amazon Rainforest.

After months of traveling around the Amazon River’s estuaries, Orellana lost more men due to diseases and hunger leaving him with 40 men, they were also running low on supplies. They decided to botch the expedition and travel to the Island of Margarita west of Trinidad where they officially ended their second and final quest to find El Dorado.

Even though these two expeditions failed to find El Dorado, the legend lived on and in the following years, there have been several unrecorded expeditions that have all turned out unsuccessful. In the year 2020, satellite technology revealed what might have been the city of El Dorado and this reignited the modern hunt for the city of gold.

Modern hunt for El Dorado

In December 2020, astronauts on board the International Space Station spotted something peculiar near Bolivia. From space, the satellite could detect what appeared like rivers of gold weaving through the section of Amazon Rainforest Orellana is believed to have traveled through hundreds of years ago.

They sent a team of researchers led by Heiko Prumers from the German Archeological Institute who headed to the Bolivian rainforest and made a shocking discovery.

Hidden deep in the forest is an ancient civilization that has been lost for centuries. There is a pyramid 60 feet high, rectangular structures, paths, and roads used around 500 years ago, the same time Orellana and his team traveled the area in their first expedition.

These latest findings have led some to believe in Orellana's story; it is however difficult to explore these vast areas of land because the Amazon forest has overgrown them making them inaccessible. Out of the 2.7 million square miles of land, less than a million have been studied leaving many to believe that El Dorado might not be a myth, but a real city whose ruins are still located in part of the 2 million square miles of land yet to be explored by archeologists.

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