El Dorado, originally El Hombre Dorado or El Rey Dorado, was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief or king of the Muisca people, an indigenous people of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita.
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The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire.
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Second location for El El Rey Dorado was inferred from rumors, which inspired several unsuccessful expeditions in the late 1500s in search of a city called Manoa on the shores of Lake Parime or Parima.
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El Rey Dorado went about all covered with powdered gold, as casually as if it were powdered salt.
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El El Rey Dorado is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous abundance along with gold coins.
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The concept of El El Rey Dorado underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were combined with those of a legendary lost city.
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El Rey Dorado was brought thither all the way blindfold, led by the Indians, until he came to the entrance of Manoa itself, and was fourteen or fifteen days in the passage.
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Meanwhile, the name of El El Rey Dorado came to be used metaphorically of any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired.
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El El Rey Dorado is sometimes used as a metaphor to represent an ultimate prize or "Holy Grail" that one might spend one's life seeking.
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El Rey Dorado led those of his followers who survived back to Coro in 1546.
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In 1536, stories of El El Rey Dorado drew the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada and his army of 800 men away from their mission to find an overland route to Peru and up into the Andean homeland of the Muisca for the first time.
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Quesada believed this might have been El El Rey Dorado and decided to postpone his return to Santa Marta and continue his expedition for another year.
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El Rey Dorado ordered Orellana to continue downstream, where he eventually made it to the Atlantic Ocean.
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El Rey Dorado died a poor man, and is buried at the church in the small town of Guatavita.
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El Rey Dorado filed for bankruptcy and ceased activities in 1929.
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El Rey Dorado was encouraged by the account of Juan Martinez, believed to be Juan Martin de Albujar, who had taken part in Pedro de Silva's expedition of the area in 1570, only to fall into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower Orinoco.
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