Every expedition carries with it the possibility of becoming lost. The exuberance of the jungle, the inaccessibility of the mountainous terrain, and the endless vastness of the pampas all fueled the madness of the European explorer. In the pampas, the traveler is never certain of progressing along the course of the journey, but instead seems to repeat, again and again in a straight line, the very same path.

These expanses, that of an ever-unchanging Pampa giving way to a Patagonia as desolate as it is arid, led Europeans to believe that somewhere there must exist a great city, as immense as the territory surrounding it, just as paradise must await beyond a life of suffering. After all, considering the countless hardships conquerors had to endure along the way, it does not seem so strange that they believed the inhabitants of Trapalanda to be immortal.

It is said that Trapalanda was built entirely of gold. Around 1700, the chronicles recounting its existence began to gain strength. Thus, in 1707, the traveler Silvestre Antonio de Roxas claimed to have visited the city. According to his account, Trapalanda was situated on a plain and possessed magnificent buildings which, he tells us, had been constructed “in the manner of Spain.” Around those same years, another traveler, the priest José Guevara, while doubting the stories surrounding the existence of this mythical city, remarked that he had heard reports of a city “as beautiful as Seville, abundant in silver, gold, precious stones, and other estimable riches. Its inhabitants, in both complexion and customs, resemble the Europeans from whom they descended.”

Text by Jesu Antuña, Proyecto Luciérnagas.