Yet another way is to ask a general question....................how could u accumulate a lot of gold.........??  And where would u store it.................??  Knowing there would be attempts to steal it.......

The search for El Dorado[edit]

The earliest reference to the name El Dorado was in 1535 or 1536, before Spanish contact with the Muisca people.

In 1535, Captains Anasco and Ampudia were dispatched by Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants, to discover the valley of Dorado in pursuit of the splendid riches of the Zaque, or chieftain of Cundinamarca, described by a wandering Indian of Tacumga.

After the death of Ordaz while returning from his expedition, the Crown appointed a new Governor of Paria, Jeronimo Ortal, who diligently explored the interior along the Meta River between 1532 and 1537. In 1535 he ordered Captain Alonso de Herrera to move inland by the waters of the Uyapari River (today the town of Barrancas de Orinoco). Herrera, who had accompanied Ordaz three years before, explored the Meta River but was killed by Achagua Indians near its banks while waiting out the winter rains in Casanare.

In 1536 Gonzalo Díaz de Pineda had led an expedition to the lowlands to the east of Quito and had found cinnamon trees but no rich empire.

Between 1535 and 1538, the German conquistadors Georg von Speyer and Nikolaus Federmann searched the Colombian plateaus, Orinoco Basin and Venezuelan lowlands for El Dorado.^[9] Subsequently Philipp von Hutten accompanied Von Speyer on a journey (1536–38) in which they reached the headwaters of the Rio Japura, near the equator. In 1541 Hutten led an exploring party of about 150 men, mostly horsemen, from Coro on the coast of Venezuela in search of the Golden City. After several years of wandering, harassed by the natives and weakened by hunger and fever, he crossed the Rio Bermejo, and went on with a small group of around 40 men on horseback into Los Llanos, where they engaged in battle with a large number of Omaguas and Hutten was severely wounded. He led those of his followers who survived back to Coro in 1546.^[10]

In 1560 Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre searched the Amazon region for El Dorado until Aguirre assassinated Ursúa in 1561.^[11]