The Fate Of The Wanting Habits-The Eternal Search For El Dorado  

By Ronan Saint John

When we were kids, when I was a kid, at a time when we had not had a sense of wonder beaten out of us by life, by the damn wanting habits that plagued that childhood we were fascinated by stories of legends, especially legends that had a pot of gold at the end of them. None caught my fancy more than the tales about the lost treasures of El Dorado, the main vein coming out of ancient times. Of course as a project kid, as a kid strung out a mile on the idea of having something more than the meager stuff we had and the endless “noes” of mother some such secret treasure loomed larger than that in the imagination.

The idea of treasure, of something you could just grab and win the prize got me crazy sometimes. I remember once in the spirt of that quest that I took some coins, maybe a couple of dollars’ worth and buried them in the yard. When playmates came over I told them I had heard from some old sailor at the nearby Sailors’ Home that there was treasure buried all over the place in the area from the days when harbor the projects were built next to was a contact point for privateers and others gaining their wares in an ill-gotten manner. With that spark I was able to lead those playmates to the so-called treasure and for the next few months you would find little molehills of dirt in various yards and fields based on that simple “discovery.” All for a couple of dollars’ worth of coin. Imagine finding El Dorado.       

But that was then and this is now. Recently I read an article that down in South America some explorers, maybe archeologists, had found a map or markings I am not sure which since this is all new that appears to be on the trail to El Dorado somewhere in the lower Andes where the indigenous peoples there held sacred ceremonies. These ceremonies, essentially rites of passage to manhood of the young bravos were long rumored to have been occasions when each received gold and silver to be thrown by them into a pile in a designated cave. That cave, the repository of the whole tribal experience was considered sacred, meaning leave it alone-or else. Of course when the Spaniards and later Europeans came to grab their shares of gold and silver and whatever else was not nailed to the ground they would hear of this pot of gold just waiting to be found like money on the ground.

Some of the stories of those who actually tried to find the trail, tried to follow the markings is one of the sad tales of history. More than a few were killed once the by the locals found out what they were looking for, others never came back to the small village where the trail was allegedly to start. Some came back with wild tales of huge monsters and other oddities guarding the cave. Then once the silver ran out, the gold and explorers looked elsewhere the story was left behind. These latter-day explorers are the first known adventurers to go looking again. Good luck, but maybe I should give a cautionary tale while I am on the subject. Maybe I was not the first guy to “seed” other dreams as I did when I was a kid back in the projects. Maybe some young indigenous kid back then played the same game by conveniently leaving a map or markings for some unsuspecting people with severe wanting habits to happen upon.