Passage #72: 10 November 2010
El Dorado, Here We Come!
For centuries, the legend of El Dorado - a city so rich in gold that even the paupers bathed in its shiny dust - captivated explorers in the Americas. First the Spanish conquistadors in their funny helmets; later the British in theirs. Many expeditions set out in search of the city, but none were successful.
Historians believe that various iterations of the legend were based on exaggerated (or simply fabricated) stories by conquistadors returning from the field, mistranslations and overly hopeful interpretations of local folklore, and the natives just plain messing with their oppressors.
But what do historians know? They spend all their time reading books when they should be riding bikes!
Ask yourself: could El Dorado really be just a myth? Just a hoax? Just a sublimated expression of a society's unease with the glaring disconnect between its actions and the moral framework that it uses to justify them?
NO! El Dorado is real! El Dorado is still out there! Now, you understand, this is a valuable secret here, just between us and you. In fact, some people-in-the-know charge as much as $29.99 for this kind of information, but we here at The Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time feel that you deserve better. You deserve more. You deserve to experience the joy of searching for the gold yourselves. And we will give it to you!
Tonight, my friends, we set out in search of El Dorado!
Fair warning: you should probably start shopping for yachts and Ferraris now, just so that you won't be completely overwhelmed by all that new wealth when you arrive in the city of gold.
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