Welcome to El Dorado.
[Josh Gates] Oh, my God.
[man] The Spanish came here because they believed that it was full of gold.
[Josh] Right. They didn't find this El Dorado in the south... [man] No.
...so they believed to come up here.
- How many burials have you found here? - 120.
[Josh whispers] Look at that.
We got a cave. Look at this!
[dramatic music playing]
[thunder crashing]
It's just gonna get way, way worse.
[dramatic music playing]
Holy [bleep]. This is madness.
Almost there!
- [screams] - Hey!
[dramatic music playing]
Look at this!
This is the lost city.
What is that?
- It's gold. - Yeah.
[exclaims]
That is amazing!
[dramatic music playing]
El Dorado...
It is a legend both dazzling and deadly.
For centuries, thousands of Spanish conquistadors
vanished into the jungles of South America
in pursuit of a secret city made of gold,
laying waste to entire indigenous civilizations.
But what actually inspired the legend?
Were there really golden treasures and hidden cities?
And if so, is there more out there
waiting to be found?
The country of Colombia is ground zero for the El Dorado myth.
And now, modern explorers there
are making incredible new discoveries.
One archaeologist is mounting a search for a forgotten cave
where Colombia's greatest golden prize was found.
Another team is excavating the tombs of a powerful civilization
near Colombia's mysterious Stonehenge.
Meanwhile, deep in the untamed rainforest
cutting edge technology has revealed a massive network
of lost structures that have never been explored.
Can they be reached?
And what secrets will they reveal?
[dramatic music playing]
To untangle the myth of El Dorado,
I'm embarking on my own quest
for both truth and treasure.
Where the chances for discovery and danger
are as good as gold.
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello!
Explorer, adventurer...
This is sick.
Help!
...and a guy who ends up in some very strange situations.
Oh! [bleep]
Woo! That was exciting.
With a degree in archaeology and a passion for the unexplained...
[exclaims]
...I travel to the ends of the earth,
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Okay, let's punch it.
This is Expedition Unknown.
[latin american music playing]
Wheels down, Bogota.
Colombia's colorful, chaotic capital.
The city is perched nearly 9,000 feet above sea level
with views that will literally take your breath away.
Oh.
Thank you. Gryffindor.
[both laugh]
[upbeat music playing]
Before I trek into the depths of the jungle
in search of El Dorado,
I stop for one last indulgence.
Gracias.
This is Chocolate Santafereno.
Which is hot chocolate and cheese.
A classic Colombian comfort food I'm told.
Yep, it's great.
It's official.
Two things I would never combine in my life
I should have been putting together this whole time.
Amazing.
Delicious.
[Josh] When you tell people you're traveling to Colombia,
everybody asks the same question.
Is it safe?
And, hey, fair enough. After all for decades
this country was caught in the crosshairs
between rightwing paramilitary groups,
leftwing guerillas,
and some seriously well-armed drug cartels.
But then, things got better.
In 2016, an historic agreement
between the government and the insurgent rebels
led to a cease fire
and a Nobel Peace Prize.
And, hey, kidnappings are down by 92%
so, you know, that's good.
[suspenseful music playing]
The country has quickly become a hotspot for adventure travelers
and I'm one of them, here to begin my quest for the truth
behind the legendary city of gold.
Okay, so to understand the myth of El Dorado
we have got to talk about the founder of Bogota,
Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada,
whose statue is right behind me.
Right. Uh... [chuckles nervously] About that...
Okay, so we happened to have touched down at a slightly,
what's the word? Dynamic time.
[statue thudding]
[police blows whistle]
Ola.
A few weeks ago, demonstrations erupted across Colombia.
[shouting in Spanish]
[crowd chanting]
These protests were originally about taxes
but they have taken on a life of their own.
It's like Occupy Wall Street.
People are rising up against corruption,
calling for peace,
and generally fighting economic disparity
here in Colombia.
Many of the injustices that Colombians are fighting today
started with the Spanish.
Which is why protestors tore down that statue of de Quesada.
And to see the bigger picture
we've got to turn back the clock.
Christopher Columbus. You remember him.
After bumping into the Caribbean while searching for China,
he returned to Spain with reports of a new world
which ushered in the era of exploration.
And more accurately, exploitation.
Meet the conquistadors.
Hernan Cortes.
He arrives in Mexico in 1519.
And through some very careful diplomacy
lays waste to the Aztec empire.
In 1526,
this jack wad Francisco Pizarro
decimates the Inca empire in Peru.
Then there's de Soto who went looking for a route
to China in the southern United States.
Go figure. And Ponce de Leon
who thought the fountain of youth was in Florida.
All right, maybe he was only half wrong.
And those are just a few of the Spaniards.
Portuguese conquistadors called bandeirantes
snatched up Brazil.
And Old World invaders fan out across the continent like a virus,
all in the name of their kings.
Oh, and for God.
They're also doing this for God.
In the end, the conquistadors kill an estimated eight million.
More than 80% of the indigenous population.
And fueling their rampage
are the vast quantities of gold and silver they discover.
They melt it down to mint coins and decorate churches
and shipped more than 180 tons of gold
back to Spain.
In today's prices that's worth about $450 billion.
Which brings us back to our man in Bogota.
De Quesada wanted in on the action.
So in 1536,
he mounted an expedition to Colombia.
What he saw inspired a legend that would sow destruction
and change the course of history,
that somewhere there was a secret city entirely made of gold.
El Dorado.
This is the closest thing to El Dorado
contained within four walls.
The Museum of Gold in Bogota.
Home to 55,000 glittering artifacts,
the treasures the Spanish never found.
And the crown jewel of the collection
is a masterpiece of ancient metalwork.
The golden raft.
It depicts a mysterious ceremony
that may be the key to unlocking the truth about El Dorado.
To learn more, I need to meet the people who made it.
The Muisca.
I drive 50 miles from Bogota
into the foothills of the Andes
in a place called Sesquile.
This are is sacred to the Muisca people.
So I've recruited an old friend
who's spent years earning the trust of their tribal leaders.
- Ash! - Josh.
- Oh, my man, how are you? - Good to see you. You good?
- I'm good. How you doing? - Great. Thank you.
Great to see you.
What the hell is a Scotsman doing in the middle of Colombia?
- Just like you searching for El Dorado, Josh. Really. - [laughing]
[Josh] Last time I saw explorer and author Ashley Cowie,
we were searching for gold in his native Scotland.
Okay, so, El Dorado.
You wanna see it?
- Do I wanna see El Dorado? - See El Dorado.
- Yes. Do you know where it is? - I can take you to show you El Dorado
- but we'll introduce you to some people first. - Okay.
If it's this easy, sure, come on.
- Um, let's go. Lead on. - Let's go.
- We're on foot, yeah? Oh, boy. - We're up here, Josh.
Everything in Colombia is hills.
After trudging up a steep jungle path
we emerge into another world.
Wow.
Look at this place.
Amazing.
This is astounding. I feel like we've traveled back in time here.
We truly have traveled back in time.
[Josh] Is all of this Muisca?
This is a Muisca community, Josh.
They're called the Sesquile community.
The basic religious beliefs of these people are what?
Muiscas believe that a creator entity
known as Chiminigagua created
first the Sun and then the Moon.
And they were married.
Chiminigagua can't be worshipped directly. He was too holy.
So the Muisca people worshipped him
through the Sun and the Moon.
I've seen a lot of gold.
So this would have been offered up to these gods?
The Museum of Gold in Bogota has 55,000 pieces.
They reckon that represents about 5%
of what the Muiscas gave to their gods.
- So where are we going? - Yeah, we're going to the top of this hill.
We're going to the temple of the Sun.
Which is like the last place we have to go to get permission
to enter the most sacred landscape in Colombia.
If you think about it, it's like walking through the doorway
to the El Dorado myth.
Let's open the door. Come on.
At the summit of the hill we find a large ceremonial structure.
And a friend of Ashley's.
This is Candil. He's the leader of the community here.
[both in Spanish]
[translator speaking] Welcome to the temple of the Sun.
Please, come inside.
[Josh] But the door to El Dorado doesn't just swing open.
To gain access, I need to be accepted by the community.
[softly] What he's gonna do is a clearing ceremony, if you like.
[translator speaking] To ask the gods for permission
we're going to share a healing medicine.
So they'll give us tobacco
which is gonna clear the way for us
to allow the spirit of the Sun god
- to come in to us. - Mmm.
[drums beating]
[woman chanting]
[Josh] Soaked in a dizzying haze of smoke
the shaman blows finely ground snuff called Rape up our noses
using the traditional bone pipe or tepi.
[coughing]
The snuff is meant to induce a relaxed state
for the next step of the purification trial.
[drums beating]
A cleansing offering.
These pieces of cotton are from the youngest leader of the community.
The left represents a negative and the right is a positive.
He's telling us to concentrate
all of the negative energies we've ever had
into this piece of cotton.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh] People are always telling me to stop bottling up my negative energy.
But in this case, it's all about letting it go.
[drums beating]
[Ashley Cowie] Now we're gonna place these in the fire.
We're asking for the good positive energies to be fertilized into our life
and for the old negative energies to be burned away.
[drums beating]
[Josh] One final test remains.
A fermented corn drink called Chicha is passed around.
Made by chewing and spitting our corn kernels
Chicha is a sacred and boozy backwash.
There you go.
- This is maize and Muisca saliva, Josh. - Yes.
It's fermented for a long time
so it's really strong. It's gonna hit you where it counts.
[Josh] To outsiders like me, Chicha is challenging.
But it's also an honor.
And in the smoke, the centuries seem to waft away
to a time before conquest
when the Muisca were the guardians of this sacred landscape.
[drums beating]
[Ashley] Permission's granted.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] Candil escorts us from the temple of the Sun
to the ceremonial heart of the Muisca people.
Josh, welcome...
- ...to El Dorado. - Oh, my God.
[Josh] This is absolutely breathtaking.
[Ashley] There's no other word for it, Josh.
And without this lake, there would be no El Dorado legend.
[Josh] Muisca leader Carlos Candil
and explorer Ashley Cowie
explained that the El Dorado legend
started with a ritual that took place in Lake Guatavita.
The golden raft in the museum of Bogota
depicts an actual golden raft that was used here at Guatavita, Josh.
That golden man standing on the raft
with all of his attendants around him,
that was the coronation ritual
to install he ruler of the Muisca land.
[Josh] To the Muisca, Lake Guatavita was their holiest site.
Where thousands would gather to witness the ascension of their ruler
known as the zipa.
[translator speaking] When the zipa came here to become king
they would cover him in gold.
This plant here when you mush it up
becomes like a glue that was put all over the man's body.
Then he was covered with golden powder.
The raft is loaded with gold figurines.
And it's pushed out into the middle of the lake.
And when it gets there, and the sun is shining on that King to be.
He dives off into the lake.
At that point, he's the golden man.
El Hombre Dorado.
So, El Hombre Dorado or El Dorado.
El Dorado originally, he's a man, is a king, a leader.
So how do we go from a man, El Hombre Dorado to El Dorado, a city of gold?
- It seems like a huge leap. - It's like a game of telephone, Josh,
- Uh-huh. - First, conquistadors come here and find
bits of gold, and they know that there's gold in these landscapes.
- Right. - They hear about a golden man.
Then it becomes a golden village and there actually is records
- of people looking for golden villages. - Right.
Then it becomes the Golden City.
[Josh] In an early call in the game of telephone that turned a golden man
into a golden city was placed by our toppled conquistador
back in Bogota, Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada.
In 1536, he leads 900 men into the Colombian Highlands,
where many fall victim to disease and starvation.
Of the original party, only 170 make it out of the jungle.
Clearly a glutton for punishment, in 1569, he tries again
with similar dire results.
But the survivors of these ill-fated expeditions return with stories
of a treasure trove of offerings, lost in the depths.
Imagine hearing stories of people covering themselves in gold.
Right, I mean, you would think, "Oh, they must have so much wealth."
They must be so dripping in gold, that they can afford to bathe in it almost.
- Yeah. - Their imaginations must have gone wild.
Yeah.
[Josh] Gold fever erupts, the scene depicted
on that ceremonial raft launches an Armada
and waves of conquistadors descend on Lake Guatavita to make their fortune.
So hundreds of years ago, how would they have tried
to get this gold out of the lake?
First attempt was made in 1545 with wooden buckets.
- Wooden buckets? - That's how desperate they were,
they got more ambitious and they did this here,
- they cut this ravine into the side... - Oh, here where it's cut out.
Yeah, this is a draining hole, Josh, where they tried to drain the water out.
It was a disaster.
In 1580, the Spanish drained the lake by 60 feet,
but only recover half a million dollars worth of gold.
But they abandoned the project, when a ravine collapses,
killing hundreds of workers.
In the late 1800s, they pumped water out from the central lake
and they got it down to about four feet high.
But of course, the sun was coming through the water,
and it baked the silt into cement, so they couldn't get through
the cement to get to the gold.
It does seem like every effort to recover gold here
- has been kind of cursed. - Without doubt.
[Josh] Disastrous attempts to salvage gold from Lake Guatavita
didn't stop until the Colombian government declared it
a cultural heritage site in 1965.
All of these attempts to drain the lake, to damage this place,
to take this gold.
How has that affected the Muisca?
[translator] Our community was destroyed by the conquistadors,
we lost our homes and our sacred places.
We could not practice our religion, and forgot many of the stories
of our grandparents.
First wave was the physical trauma,
having lost over a million people, it was horrendous.
Sisters, brothers gone, traditions, songs, music, crafts, wiped out.
- Yeah. - But then came a spiritual catastrophe,
they had no connection with divinity,
they had no way to listen to the goddess and to the gods.
Now, do you think though there is more gold out there?
Maybe not a gilded city, but do you think there is still lost gold
that elusive thing the Spanish were after?
So much more to learn about El Dorado, Josh,
you've seen where the golden raft ceremony took place.
- Yes. - But what you really need to see is where
that little golden raft was discovered.
- It wasn't discovered around Lake Guatavita? - It was found about 100 miles
- from here, Josh. - Really?
Thank you so much for taking us here for allowing us to come here
to see this place, it's really special.
- [speaking in Spanish] - [translator] Thank you so much for coming.
Thank you.
From Lake Guatavita, I journey 100 miles south to the town of Pasca.
The location of the cave of the golden raft is a closely guarded secret,
to discover what other treasures may be hiding inside.
I'm going to need a guide.
That's where archaeologist and expert in Muisca art,
Dr. Natalia Lozada Mendieta comes in.
- [Josh] Natalia? - Yes.
- Hey, how are you. - Fine, Josh.
- Jump in. - Thank you. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too. Okay, where are we going?
- That's the big question. - Further into the mountains.
- Yes.
- Oh, boy. - [laughs]
We're going to see where the Muisca raft was found.
I can't wait. This is amazing. How are the roads, perfect?
- Yes. - I've only just met you, but I sense that
you're lying to me.
The conquistadors believe that the roads in El Dorado were paved with gold.
But where we're going, they're not paved at all.
- Okay. - Oh.
Natalia, you were right, the road is great.
It's everything you promised.
- I tried to tell you. - How confident are you that you can find this cave?
I mean, I have a rough idea of where it is.
How rough?
- It's my first time there. Yeah. - Wow.
- We're gonna try to find it. - Okay.
[Josh] The cave has never been fully investigated
and its location was nearly forgotten.
Now, we may be one of the first to ever film there.
- If we don't get led astray. - [dogs barking]
I'm following these dogs, they're leading the way.
- I think you have to stop here. - This is it?
Yeah, this is it. Now it's up there.
We have to go walking.
- I'm sorry, up there? - Yes.
It looks slightly imposing.
- I mean, that's about as mysterious a view... - That you can get.
- Yeah. - [Josh] I all of a sudden understand
why no one knows where this cave is.
There are no trail markers, no landmarks,
just the faint traces of an ancient path.
[Natalia] The cave doesn't want to be found.
[thunderclap]
[Josh] It's starting to rain, let's get inside the trees here.
- [Natalia] Yeah. - Get rain gear on.
[Josh] Oh, it is just vertical.
Yeah, literally, just a vertical ascent.
Whoa, Natalia, are you okay?
[Natalia] Be careful with this.
Stick to the roots, not the branches.
[Josh] As we climb higher, the dense jungle completely obscures
the trail ahead.
Whatever path we had just feels like it's just about gone.
-[Natalia] I have a hunch. Yeah. -You have a hunch? Good.
- Josh, look at this. - Look at that, a cave!
[Natalia] Ooh, this is huge. Josh, this is it.
[Josh] This is awesome.
Very few have ever seen these sacred chambers
where the golden raft was discovered.
Unbelievable.
This is so cool. Let's see what's in here.
Nice and slow.
Oh, this is insane.
[Natalia] This is great.
- Do you see anything, Josh? - No, nothing in here.
- Anything over there? - Nothing yet.
[Josh] What is this?
This looks manmade.
- Anything over there? - Nothing yet.
What is this?
This looks manmade.
It has that razor sharp edge that looks like it was worked, like it was made.
- It looks like a tool. - It does.
- Could have been a scraper. - Totally, essential tool in our hands.
You're holding in your hands a tool. A Muisca tool.
That's incredible. The idea that we could be holding something here
that was worked by human hands 1500 years ago.
- At least. - How crazy is that?
That's exciting.
That's why we do what we do.
[Josh] Perhaps used for food preparation.
This stone scraper could have been left here by the very artisans
who made the golden raft.
Let's see what else is in here.
- So many little nooks and crannies in here. - Yeah.
I don't see anything, but a lot more spiders.
[Natalia chuckles]
- So how did this raft get found here? - So it's 1969.
And there are a couple of farmers that came up to the mountain.
They found a ceramic vessel and inside of the vessel,
that was the Muisca raft.
And they take the whole thing back to their home
and tell the priests of the town that they have just found this.
Right, do these farmers have any idea the significance
- of what they found. - Of course they knew it was important
and that's why they told the priests, right?
They could have kept it and, so we owe them
to have the Muisca raft right now.
Another part of this story is that so many Muisca items were never turned in, right?
There's been a ton of looting.
It's been a major problem, and most of the items in the gold museum
come from looting.
[Josh] But the biggest looters of all were the conquistadors.
[Natalia] There's probably lots that were lost when the Spaniards came
because they just took the gold, melted it, and brought it back to Spain.
Did the Spanish also seem to have overlooked
the artistry of it, there was no appreciation for a lot of the mastery
that went into what the Muisca were able to make.
To the Spanish, gold has monetary value.
To the Muisca, it's in spiritual value.
I mean that's the key right there, these two cultures
that that are completely opposed in terms of how they think about this stuff.
To the Spanish, this is valuable, this is money,
they're hiding money from us.
Pretty hard for the Muisca to be able to calculate
- the level of greed from the Spanish Empire though. - True.
And in the end, the Muisca culture was nearly wiped out.
[Josh] But the raft survived, because it was hidden away up here.
Help me understand why the Muisca would put something so beautiful
in such a remote spot?
Mountains, top of the mountains would be associated to sacred spots,
- Right. - And the higher up, the more sacred they are.
It has to do with the sacred land that belongs to the gods.
When we think about El Dorado, is part of what drives
the Spanish to keep searching deeper and deeper into the mountains
this very fact that people are concealing offerings,
and that some of these amazing glittering items are out of reach?
Absolutely, and it might have looked like that,
because of course, the offerings were being made in remote places
- like this. - Right.
It gives fuel to this obsession of theirs.
Yes.
As the Spanish went hunting for treasures in the mountains,
but found only isolated offerings,
they became more desperate, when de Quesada rode into a new village demanding gold,
The Muisca would attempt to dissuade his men,
telling them the mother lode was deeper in the interior.
El Dorado was always just one conquest away.
This belief led de Quesada away from Lake Guatavita
and deeper into Muisca territory.
I thank Natalia and follow Quesada's quest 140 miles northeast
to a site called El Infiernito,
where archaeologist Pedro Arguello may have unearthed
a treasure of his own.
Hello, hello. How are you?
-How are you? Nice to meet you. -[speaks other language]
Nice to meet you too. I feel like I'm at Stonehenge.
Wow, okay so these stones would align to what?
- To mark December 21. - So the winter solstice?
[Pedro] The solstice, yeah.
Right.
[Josh] Carved out of pink sandstone and aligned in two symmetrical rows,
the position of the sun and moon in relation
to these stones acts as an astrological calendar.
Now, this place though today is called El Infiernito?
- Yeah. - So if I remember my high school Spanish,
that's like "The hell."
The little hell.
So, why is it called that?
So because this is a pagan place, it's not Christian.
To them it was hell, it was evil.
- Yeah. - This, this is like conquistador rebranding.
- Rebranding, yes. - Right,
this northern area was a big power center for the Muisca?
And the Spanish, and de Quesada the conquistador,
he comes up to the north as well, right?
Yeah, the Spanish came here because they believe that it was full of gold.
-Right, they didn't find this El Dorado in the south, -No.
- So they believed come up here. - Yeah.
[Josh] So the Spanish arrived here, what do they do?
[Pedro] They do what they always do. First they kidnapped the leader.
- [Josh] Right. - And asked for gold.
Right, that's their big move, right? Kidnap the leader,
and demand that all this hidden gold be brought to them.
- Aha. - And so did they bring gold?
[Pedro] Yeah, people bring some gold,
but it was no enough, so they decide to kill the leader.
- It's never enough. - It's never enough for the Spaniards.
De Quesada and his army use every dirty trick in the conquistador playbook,
ruthless betrayal, kidnapping, and murder to take down
the Muisca chieftains in the north and south.
In less than a year, the Muisca Confederation was crushed.
And now in terms of the archaeology in this area today.
- Hmm. - What are you finding?
Uh-huh.
Wow.
I would love that.
[Josh] We drive to Dr. Arguello's dig site
and archaeologists El Dorado
that may be the most important Muisca discovery since the golden raft.
- I feel like we're going to university. - It is a university.
- The excavation's in a university? Okay. - Yeah.
- This makes no sense to me. - [laughs]
- So, this is the dig. Yeah. - This is the dig?
I mean, we're, like, in the middle of the campus here.
- [Pedro] Yeah. - [Josh] This is crazy.
We're like in the middle of the campus.
- This is engineering building? - Yeah, it's engineering building.
[Josh] My quest to untangle the El Dorado myth
has led me to the remains of a Muisca burial site miraculously discovered
in the heart of a Colombian University campus.
- [Josh] Like, what was here? - [Pedro] A parking lot.
- Literally, this was a parking lot? - Yeah, it was a parking lot.
But underneath it a Muisca site?
- And it a Muisca site. - So how did you figure out this was here?
Before we build a new building,
we have to make an archaeological discovery.
- How many burials have you found here? - 120 burials.
- A 120? - Yeah, actually it is one of the largest burial sites
in the Northern Andes.
[Josh] The Muisca elite were buried with pots of food
and precious gold jewelry, indicators of their high social status
to ensure a good afterlife.
The Spanish were aware of this practice,
and would rob Muisca graves, but they never found this site.
Hundreds of vessels have been unearthed here
and now, archaeologists are homing in on that most elusive prize, gold.
- Hola. - Hola.
Let me introduce Tatiana, she's archaeologist of this site.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
The sifting station, where all the action happens.
- Uh-huh. - What are we finding?
Look at this.
- Pottery. - Pottery, pottery. Incredible.
Literally just buckets of dirt,
and it is just filled with pottery.
[Pedro] It means that people used to live here.
Give me the range of dates on the pottery.
[speaking in Spanish]
Wow, so 1000, 1200 years ago.
- So cool. - Okay, can we see some of the pits?
- Of course. - Let's take a look. Okay.
A nearby burial offers another window into the past.
[both speak other language]
- [speaks other language] - What do we got here?
Oh, this is awesome.
- It's vertebrae. - [Pedro] Yeah.
Is that a long bone, yeah?
- Tibia, maybe? - Yes, yeah.
Wow. And then we have this ceramic vessel.
So each of these pits is a single burial.
- Si. - Si?
They're not extensive, were they, were they buried,
like, in a seated position?
[speaking in Spanish]
Aha, fetal position with ceremonial offerings?
Uh-huh, sometimes.
Okay, so let's see what else we've got.
There is no clear pattern to determine which Muisca burials hold offerings.
Modern archaeologists are never sure what they're going to find.
Oh.
This is amazing. So we've got what looks like a vessel.
It's a vessel, and it has human bones inside.
- In the vessel. - In the vessel.
- And this is a child. - Wow, how many children's burials
have you found here?
- Fifty? - Yeah, 50.
And why so many children?
It's a good question and we are trying to figure out why.
One intriguing possibility is that children were brought here for burial
from neighboring villages.
So maybe more evidence here, that this really is a significant site,
a holy place, finding any burial is so personal,
but when you find a child's burial, it's, it's kind of emotional,
you know, I mean, such a short life,
- Mm-hmm. - but in a way, you know, 1000 years or more later.
Kind of living again in a sense and teaching us about the culture
is, it's incredible.
- It's incredible. - Yeah.
And even though this is broken,
the preservation here really is remarkable considering it was all
- underneath a parking lot. - Yeah,
it is because most of the burials have a slab.
- Oh, so there was, like, a capstone... over the top. - Cap. Uh-huh.
- So they would have had this protective cover. - Yes, actually, we have
a burial that we haven't opened yet,
- so we are waiting for you. - A stone you haven't removed?
- Yes. Oh, can we film it? - Come on.
Oh, yes, this is incredible.
Whatever lies inside hasn't seen the light of day
in more than 1000 years.
[gasps] Here.
This is awesome.
Wow, okay, so do we lift, do we flip?
- We flip. - We flip. Okay.
- Are you ready? - One, two, three.
[grunts]
- Definitely a burial. - [Pedro] Yes.
Perfectly round hole here.
So now what's inside?
- Let's work. - With pleasure,
- It's time to work. - Here we go.
Okay.
- Here. Be careful. - Oh, oh, right here, right here.
Look, here, look.
- Yeah, it's a hole and... - Is it ceramic?
No, it is a skull.
[Josh] It's a skull, look at that.
- That is a skull. - Yeah.
Can I have a brush?
The skull is perfectly preserved,
having been protected by its capstone.
And until recently, a parking lot.
- Look at this. - Muisca... Oh...
- That's a vessel. - It's a vessel.
It is, that's ceramic, look at that.
- Is that intact? - Maybe.
Absolutely incredible.
- It's a lip, yeah. - There's the lip of the vessel right there.
[speaking in Spanish]
[Josh] As we brush away more dirt, something unmistakable
catches the light.
- Wait. - What is that?
[exclaims]
Out on the streets of Bogota, I find a Rockstar rendition
of a popular Colombian dessert.
- Now, Mick Jagger owns this stand? - Si.
He does. Wow, that guy has diversified.
[speaking in Spanish]
Whatever Mr. Jagger recommends.
Gracias.
This is my first Obleas.
Wafer cookies, dulce de leche, jam and chocolate.
Sir Mick has another hit on his hands.
Incredible. Wow.
It turns out you can get some satisfaction.
- Si. Si. - That's a Rolling Stones joke.
I'm going to be dancing in the street, I have a few of these.
A Rolling Sto-- doesn't matter.
It's really good.
- What is that? - [speaks other language]
-It's gold. -It's gold? It's gold? [laughs]
- Yeah. It's a piece of gold. - [exclaims]
Unbelievable. Look at this.
This is incredible.
It's gold and copper, yeah?
[man speaking]
[Josh] That is unbelievable.
Tumbaga is a copper and gold alloy
made by the Muisca.
Its lower melting point made it easier to work with than pure gold,
and the presence of copper explains the green patina.
- Have you found this in other pits? - No.
- No? [laughs] - No.
[Josh] Oh, this is awesome.
We carefully remove more soil from around the skull.
Oh, this is incredible! There's more, two more.
- Another here? - [man] Yeah.
So one, two, three, four, five. What do you think?
I think it's our necklace.
[Josh] I mean, look at the positioning of it right under the skull.
- [man] Yeah. - That is absolutely incredible.
This must have been someone significant, right?
[speaking other language]
[Josh] Yeah.
Finally, after hours of painstaking brushing...
- More. - [man and woman] More.
- [man] Yeah. - [Josh] Get outta here.
...a dozen pyramid-shaped beads are revealed in all their glory.
- When this was buried, it would have shined like gold. - [man] Of course.
- [Josh] But over time, the copper's oxidizing? - [man] Yeah.
And is most of the Muisca gold like this?
In most of the cases, yes.
It's so fascinating because when we think of the myth
of El Dorado and the Spanish obsession
with the Muisca gold,
we think of pure gold, but it really wasn't.
And why is that?
This is because Muisca people doesn't have mines.
They weren't mining their own gold?
But they were making a lot of things using gold.
So the gold was coming from where?
- They were trading for it? - Yeah.
And what would the Muisca use to trade for gold?
Salt.
Salt?
They used to trade gold with salt.
- Salt was as valuable as gold. - [man] Yeah.
In some cases, more.
[Josh] This is a stunning revelation.
The Muisca didn't build a golden city,
or even a gold mine.
In fact, they were known to other Colombian cultures
as the salt people.
They used their expansive trade network
to barter for gold
and developed sophisticated metallurgy
to transform this rare and precious resource
into gifts for their gods.
You know, it's so funny because the Spanish
think that the Muisca have endless gold. In reality, they have salt.
We have this legend of El Dorado that is larger than life,
you know, entire cities made of gold,
but here's El Dorado, this is the reality.
- Thank you so much. - You're welcome.
Are there more of these around,
are there mores stones we should be turning over?
- [all laughing] - [man] Yeah.
- I don't know if... - I have gold fever now.
In fact, there are more stones to turn in the El Dorado legend.
And mounting evidence
suggesting that the conquistadors' belief
in a great lost civilization may not have been so far-fetched.
It's clear that the rituals and precious offerings of the Muisca people
helped fuel the Spanish obsession with El Dorado.
But this legend is about more than just gold,
it's also about an entire lost city.
When the Spanish arrived on Colombia's Caribbean coast,
they encountered another indigenous group,
the Tairona,
a people richly adorned in gold jewelry.
They attempted to raid a Tairona capital
deep in the mountains,
but were turned back before they could plunder its wealth.
Outsiders wouldn't find the city for centuries.
That is until the 1970s
when looters deep in the jungle
discovered an ancient ruin lost for 400 years,
a place they called Ciudad Perdida,
or the "Lost City".
Soon after, glittering Tairona artefacts
began flooding the black market.
So much of it, that the global price of gold actually dropped.
And now, archaeologists working at the Lost City
have deployed cutting-edge scanning technology
that has revealed something extraordinary.
There may be even more undiscovered cities
and lost treasure deeper in the jungle.
My mission, reach the team at Ciudad Perdida
and join a dangerous mission
to find a real-life El Dorado.
From Tunja, I fly more than 500 miles north to Santa Marta,
the gateway to the Lost City.
In 1499, the first Spanish conquistadors
arrived on Colombia's Caribbean coast
in search of gold, God, and glory, in that order.
They found it, Santa Marta,
the oldest surviving colonial city in all of South America.
The Spanish tried to reach Ciudad Perdida from Santa Marta,
but they never conquered the city or understood its true extent.
Hopefully, we fare better.
My team and I hitch a ride
to the aptly-named village of Machete
to meet our local expedition team.
Okay, gracias.
All right, the adventure begins,
and this place is called the Lost City for a reason.
It's not easy to reach.
We're gonna have to hike in at least
a weeks' worth of provisions,
not to mention, all of the equipment we need
to document the journey.
And so, to do that, we're gonna need some help.
Okay, vamanos, gracias.
Turns out it takes a village to find a lost city.
Guide Sergio Guerrero will lead the charge.
-Sergio, hey. Nice to meet you, man. -Welcome.
- Welcome, man. - Thank you. Okay,
- Lost City. - Lost City is our destination.
- Somewhere up there? - Yeah.
It's right behind the clouds.
- Behind the clouds? - Yes.
About 20 miles.
- It's going to take us two days. - Perfect.
The average rainfall here is more than 157 inches a year,
making for a slow, muddy and miserable climb.
And lurking in the jungle are jaguars, spiders,
and some of the most venomous snakes on Earth.
And what are the hotels like along the way, good?
- The hotels, yeah. Yeah, yeah. - Five star?
It's 1,000 stars, I would say.
- Oh, a thousand stars, I see. - Yeah.
- That's 'cause there's no roof? Perfect. - Yeah.
All right, let's get into it, come on.
With so much gear, we are lightening our load with a little mule power...
That's, like, over 100 pounds.
This poor mule deserves every piece of food that you can give it.
...and a little horsepower.
[engine revving]
Let's go.
[Josh] The ride starts out so smooth, I feel downright optimistic.
All right!
This is my kinda hiking!
[laughs]
- Sergio... - Yeah, Josh.
...are we taking the bikes the whole way to the Lost City?
No, only three mile.
- Three miles? - [Sergio] Yeah.
Huh. I'll take it.
In these three miles, we're going to gain about 1,500 feet in elevation
and it's clear that this road was built for neither comfort
nor speed.
So this gets really challenging up in here.
Not to complain, I certainly appreciate the free ride,
but not exactly the newest tires
and not exactly the best road.
Not only are we riding on a steep incline
of mud and loose rocks,
but the deeper rocks turn these steel horses
into bucking broncos.
- [exclaims] - [Sergio] Enough.
Pretty tough going in here.
It's extremely slippy.
It's enough to make you spout gibberish.
Slippy dipples.
Whoa-ho-ho-ho!
Up, up, up, up. Come on.
We've got this.
Less like riding a motorcycle.
More like ice skating.
Come on. You've got this. You've got this.
Eventually, though, every ride has to end.
[brakes squeal]
- What's up? - Start to walk.
- What? - It's time to walk, Josh.
- It's time to walk? - Yeah, let's do it.
There's more road though, I can see it.
[Sergio] We walk now.
- No. - [Sergio] We have to walk, yeah.
But I... But I like the bike.
[Sergio] This is why you came for. Let's do it.
[Josh] The path ahead will take me into the uncharted depths
of the Sierra Nevada to Santa Marta Mountains,
one of the most unforgiving environments on Earth.
And somewhere in its depths lies the Lost City.
Next time on Expedition Unknown...
- Where's the bridge? - This is our bridge.
[Josh] All right, let's get wet.
[Josh grunting]
The quest for El Dorado continues.
Hold on!
[man on radio] We are approaching our target coordinates.
There's no place you can land out here
and there's really no way to get down there.
[Josh] We trek deep into the jungle...
Ow! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Brian!
...to separate fact from fiction...
It is just a sheer drop here.
...and discover the real El Dorado...
[laughs] Is it a wall? Look at that!
...on an epic adventure that will push my team
to the absolute limit.
Holy [bleep]!
I have never been in a jungle environment
that was more challenging than this one,
ever. This is madness.
[screams]
No!
Grab him! Grab his arm!