"El Carnero" tells the story of the Spanish conquest of the Muisca; the early exploration of northern South America and the establishment of the New Kingdom of Granada, currently Colombia and parts of Venezuela, and the foundation and first century of the city of Bogotá. Bogotá was the first city of the kingdom to have an established royal audience and a chancellery. It also describes the indigenous peoples that inhabited the region during the conquest, the civil wars between them, and their customs and culture. It details the origin of the myth of "El Dorado", the "Lost City of Gold", depicted in the Muisca raft; the initiation ritual of the "zipa" of the Muisca Confederation.