Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, after nearly a dozen years of wandering disconsolately through the gaming halls of Europe, had in 1550 returned to New Granada in 1550, where the former conquistador has settled down to live for nearly twenty years.

He is a respected colonist, becoming the most influential man in the colony.

As honorary marshal of New Granada, he protects his fellow colonists from the severity of the officials and restrains the comenderos' (large landholders) greed, but his own desire for wealth and gold continues to live inside him.

Having received a commission to conquer the Llanos to the east of the Colombian cordillera, Quesada, at the age of seventy-four, again strikes out from Bogotá in search of the fabled El Dorado.

From Bogotá in April 1569, he sets out with five hundred mounted soldiers, fifteen hundred natives, eleven hundred horses and pack animals, six hundred head of cattle, eight hundred pigs, a large number of enslaved Africans and eight priests.