Episodes

  • Episode 3: The Legacy

    Episode 3: The Legacy
    Mar 27 2025
    Summary: From Bogotá's Gold Museum, Jack Maddox examines El Dorado's cultural afterlife and lasting impact. The episode explores how the legend has inspired literature from Voltaire's "Candide" to García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and how it continues to shape our relationship with the Amazon basin. Maddox contrasts indigenous perspectives on gold with European obsessions, and draws parallels between historical quests and modern resource extraction that continues to devastate the region. Through personal reflections on his travels through Venezuela's Devil's Valley, Maddox considers what El Dorado reveals about human nature and our need for wonder, suggesting that the real tragedy of the gold-seekers was their blindness to the actual marvels surrounding them – the true treasures they failed to recognize.
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    24 mins
  • Episode 2: Famous Expeditions

    Episode 2: Famous Expeditions
    Mar 27 2025
    Episode 2: Famous Expeditions Title: El Dorado: Chasing Shadows of Gold - Part 2: Famous Expeditions Summary: From the edge of Venezuela's Gran Sabana, Jack Maddox chronicles the most famous expeditions to find El Dorado, focusing on Sir Walter Raleigh's fatal obsession with the golden city. The episode explains how the legend migrated eastward to Guiana and transformed into the kingdom of Manoa on the shores of the mythical Lake Parime. Maddox examines how maps combined fantasy with science to perpetuate the myth despite repeated failures to locate it, and traces the evolution from gold-seeking conquistadors to scientific explorers like Richard Spruce and Alfred Russel Wallace, who sought different treasures in the Amazon's biodiversity. The episode concludes by exploring recent archaeological discoveries suggesting that advanced pre-Columbian civilizations in the Amazon may have been the real "treasure" all along.
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    27 mins
  • Episode 1: The Birth of a Legend

    Episode 1: The Birth of a Legend
    Mar 27 2025
    Episode 1: The Birth of a Legend Title: El Dorado: Chasing Shadows of Gold - Part 1: The Birth of a Legend Summary: Jack Maddox traces the evolution of El Dorado from a ritual involving a gold-dusted Muisca chieftain to a fabled city of gold. Broadcasting from a boat on Venezuela's Orinoco River, Maddox explores how Spanish conquistadors like Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and Gonzalo Pizarro launched brutal expeditions in pursuit of this golden phantom, transforming a simple ceremony at Lake Guatavita into an ever-shifting geographical fantasy. The episode examines how European gold lust collided with indigenous realities, including the infamous story of Lope de Aguirre's descent into madness, while reflecting on the psychological forces that drove explorers to endure unimaginable hardships based on mere rumors of gold.
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    29 mins