We had a lovely climb to the top and heard the story of the legend of El Dorado. There are many legends of El Dorado, but this sounds like it was the real thing. The guide told us the Spaniards took out about 10 ton of gold from this Guatavita lagoon. Some gold pre-Columbian figurines were found in the water and are now in the Gold Museum. The legend is that the Musca tribe felt this lagoon was sacred. Every year right before the harvest the people of the tribe would climb up to the lagoon with their gold offerings. The lagoon was sacred, so the common people could not look at it. They would stand around the edge of the lagoon but looking away from it. A man would be sellected and he would put honey all over his body and then they would put cold dust on him. He would jump in to the water and swim around while washing off the honey and gold. When he was clean, he would climb out and they would blow a horn and then the people would throw in their gold offerings into the water without looking at it. This went on for several hundreds of years. The story has it that some peple have died in the lagoon trying to get to the gold. It is now protected by the government and no one can get in the water.
