Unit11-Part2-Reading

the Golden Man.

Lake Guadavita was a sacred lake for the natives of Colombia many centuries ago.

One of the tribes there had a very rich chief whose name was Eldorado.

Every year, he covered himself in gold dust,

got on a raft with his priests and sailed to the middle of the small lake to offer treasures to the late goddess.

Then, he dived into the water and washed off the gold dust.

Afterwards, some jewels and precious offerings were thrown into the water by the priests.

When the Europeans heard about this ritual, they thought there was a rich city in South America with lots of gold and that its name was Eldorado.

Between 1530 and 1650, thousands of Europeans went on expeditions to the continent in order to find this golden city.

They explored the whole continent while searching for it.

When they finally arrived at Lake Guadavita, they learned a true story and began to recover gold from it.

By 1536, European treasure hunters and looters had taken out 100 kilograms of gold.

In later years, Spanish colonizers tried to drain the lake in order to recover its gold.

In their first attempt, which was in 1545,

a Spanish invader made his slaves empty out the water with buckets, which lowered the water level by three meters.

This went on for three months, but very little gold could be recovered.

35 years later, a draining system was built, which collapsed and killed many workers.

In the last attempt in 1898, a tunnel was dug, which opened up the center of the lake.

The tunnel drained the water to just 1 .2 meters.

Unfortunately, the mud and slime on the bottom of the lake hardened and buried all the gold, making it impossible to dig it out.