Antonio de León Pinelo, a 17th-century Spanish-colonial historian, placed the ‘Earthly Heaven’ in the heart of the Amazon jungle and imagined Noah’s Ark drifting down the Amazon River. The legends of El Dorado, the Fountain of Youth and the biblical return to paradise forged fragments of Latin American stories and identities. These utopias were based on the dreams and desires of the Spanish conquistadores, who saw in the ‘untouched’ lands of the Americas an opportunity to create perfect communities.