Lake Guatavita has long been a subject of countless legends revolving around Native American gold. It lies on the outskirts of the Amazon basin, in what is now Colombia. The lake is almost perfectly round and is located in the crater of an extinct volcano at an altitude of about 10,000 feet above sea level. Its depth is 400 feet.
According to rumors that reached the Spanish conquistadors, the lake was a major sacred site where the Muisca leaders had their initiation. During the ritual, the tribe members would smear the newly appointed chief with gold powder and adorn him with precious ornaments which later had to be thrown into the lake. The ceremony of electing a leader took place every year. You don’t have to be a genius to assume the obvious – over time, immeasurable golden wealth must have accumulated at the bottom of the lake.
Thus, in the 16th century, the Spaniards organized the first expedition to the mysterious lake. Even though this expedition was purely exploratory, it returned with quite a good catch. Several dozen gold decorations were found on the muddy shores of the lake. Encouraged, the Spaniards immediately set off to the shores of the lake again, this time they were better prepared.
But there was no more gold on the shore. All that was left was the lake itself, or rather its bottom. The conquistadors forced the local Indians to scoop out the lake. As ludicrous as it sounds, this is what happened: hundreds of Indians passed buckets filled with water to each other in a chain. The water was passed up the rocky shore in a human chain, where it was dumped over the rocky cliff. This Sisyphean labor went on daily for three months. The level of the lake dropped by a few pathetic inches, and only a few gold ornaments were found. Realizing the effort was not worth it, the Spaniards called off this inhumane operation.
The next hunt for treasures took place 40 years later, in 1580. The wealthy Spanish merchant Antonio de Sepulveda approached the search for treasures at the bottom of the lake competently and thoroughly.
With the help of the same Indians (some say there were 8 thousand of them), he dug a deep trench in the mountainside to drain the water. And indeed, the water level dropped by as much as 9 feet.
But there were very few gold ornaments found on the exposed slopes. And it was still a long way to the bottom – 400 feet is no joke. In addition, the walls of the trench constantly collapsed, the pumping process was slowed down, and the Indians escaped in different directions. The merchant had to stop his large-scale search, and Lake Guatavita once again remained unconquered.
In the 17th-18th centuries, the silence and tranquility of the lake were undisturbed. Only the famous naturalist Alexander von Humboldt managed to calculate that if the legend is to be believed, about 500,000 gold jewelry pieces should be hidden at the bottom of the lake. And their value should be astronomical.
These calculations inspired British explorers at the end of the 19th century, and a few years later they made the last and most grandiose attempt to drain the lake. In 1912, the expedition arrived at the shores of the lake. The explorers brought with them several powerful steam pumps. After several weeks of pumping, the lake level dropped by 35 feet. A solid section of the bottom was exposed. However, under the scorching South American sun, the muddy ground baked and hardened to the point where it was barely softer than cement. There was no technical possibility to dig into it.
As for the findings, the lake once again teased the researchers, “rewarding” them with fewer than a dozen golden statues. The level of the lake rose again in a couple of months, and silence and tranquility resumed.
Muisca raft gold statue. Photo from social media.
The lake made the news for the last time in the 1960s when a hefty golden statue (Muisca raft) was found on its shore, depicting a man on a raft surrounded by 12 idols. Of course, this was an invigorating piece of news for many adventurers in the world.
Since then, however, no one has been able to research the bottom due to the legal restrictions imposed by the Colombian government, which declared the lake a natural reserve. Do you think Colombians actually know what mysteries are hidden in the waters of Lake Guatavita? It seems to us they do and have no intention of sharing this secret with the world.
