El camino de El Dorado / The Road to El Dorado
Novel , 1947
Drácena
Pages: 310
This is the story of Lope de Aguirre and the ill-fated expedition he joined under Pedro de Ursúa in search of the legendary kingdom of the Omaguas. In 1560, a large band of greedy adventurers — accompanied by their indigenous guides and pack animals — set off down the Marañón and Amazon rivers, driven by the hope of seizing the untold riches said to lie in El Dorado, a city of gold ruled by a king whose body was said to be entirely covered in the precious metal.
The Road to El Dorado is one of the earliest novels to explore this subject —later taken up by authors such as Sender, Posse, and more recently Ospina. Perhaps for that very reason, for being the first, it remains the most faithful to the atrocious events that unfolded during that sinister expedition in search of a mirage.