| In this section, I am placing all the feedback this part of the site generates so that other fans can express thier ideas about how long Esteban and Company searched for the Cities of Gold. If you have additional information to add to the timeline, please feel free to email me and I will post it here. |
| Hello Sailor Heva, This timeline idea is something I've considered a time or two as well and think it would really be a lot of fun. Obviously, one of the main points to consider is realism. If this story were a novel that was being written in the same vein as like, The Kings Fifth (historically accurate and fairly detailed), one of the things you'd have to consider is how much time is needed to attend to the necessities of survival. Like when they were about to set out into the desert after leaving the village on the lake, it seems silly that they would do so with only one water bag, right? But it's a cartoon and simplification was necessary. In a more detailed story, one would expect them to have loaded up a llama with supplies (the village people would have been more than willing considering what they'd done for them), a task that probably would have taken at least a day. Another example (and I can think of many) is when they leave Taos island on the Solaris. They wouldn't have just set sail without first gathering supplies, plotting a course, and most important, learning how to work the ship. This would have probably taken a fairly considerable amount of time. Of course the writers could have implied these things in the show but that would have been unnecessarily awkward and kind of irrelevant. Anyway, the only thing that really caught my attention in terms of the passage of time, and which I thought was mildly amusing was the speed with which they were able to build things - rafts, wooden submarines, battle towers, etc. You know any one of those things would have taken at least a few days to make. Also, I think there probably would have been some time spent with some of the people they stopped by with to rest and collect themselves (like at Machu Pichu). All in all I would give their entire adventure from Barcelona to the final moment of the final episode about one year - I think that's pretty realistic. I have a rough estimate of their progress in my head. Here is a portion of the breakdown.... - 4.5 months on Esperanza (they had almost completed the voyage right?) - 2 days floating on raft - 2-3 weeks on Taos island - 3-4 days on Solaris - about 4 or 5 days in Panama? was it? - 2-3 days looking for Zias village (here I'm not too sure about distances) - 1 day in Zias village and 3 days travel with Weyna and Kecha to Fort of Black Eagle - 1 day at fort and 1 day of travel to Machu Pichu - a week at Machu and so on... Again, its pretty rough, considering how little I actually know about survival skills and the actual distances that were traveled! -Amie |
| Hi there Amie, Thanks for the message and the insightful comments. Your right that it is a cartoon and needs to be simplified, with a minimal amount of time given to supplies and such. I always enjoy the episodes where Esteban and company have to find food of some kind, be it giant tortoise or iguana. Adds a little more realism to the series. Interestingly enough, I think that your tally and mine for the timeline are about the same. I agree that it had to have been about a year total. Part of what I am doing in this section is actually trying to find dates for various events (trying to find out if Barcelona has a city festival day for one) as well as the miles/kilometers that the characters would have had to cross in order to go to all the places shown in the series. It's a fairly complex setup, but I hope it will be worth a visit. Would you mind if I kept your email and posted it on the Timeline page? I had planned to make a email form so that people could send me any pertinent information they might have, but you were too fast for me. ^_^ I would really like to get other peoples opinions about this topic because there is certainly room for debate. Thanks so much for the email! It really brightened my day! -Sailor Heva |
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Hello, -Amie |
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Yeah there does seem to be a lot of festivals in Spain. The most likely
candidate I have found in on the 24-28 of September, the Fiestas de
la Merced, which celebrates the Patron Saint of Barcelona, the Virgen
de la Merced. This also coincides with the rainy season in the interior
of Spain. My brother-in-law lived in the Madrid area for a couple of
years and he said it basically only rained in the Fall. But of course
Barcelona probably has a very different climate given that it is on
the Mediterranean Sea. However, it also happens to be when most 16-17th
century mariners set out to round Cape Horn around September so that
is my best guess so far. I probably am putting way too much time into
researching something that I can never prove concretely, but it is fun. |
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The main page is here: I'm using your timeline to help me get started. On your timeline comments
page, there's mention of tying it in with a Regardless though, I've started the blog on the 23rd Sept, the day before the festival you mention, as it happily makes it plausible for the golden butterfly event to take place on the 1st January, which I think is nice. -Carl Franks (June 08, 2006) |
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The timeline still needs a lot of work but I am glad that it is a resource that you can use. I hadn't thought about that line about the festival honoring the fleet's departure. I was remembering one of the sailors saying "It's the city festival today" and another replying "Yes, I would like to have stayed one more day" or something like that. Thanks for pointing that out to me! -Sailor Heva |
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well ...like almost everyone else ...i tend to write ahead , so i was
watching some of the episodes the other night ..tring to count how many
scenes Gaspar and Gomez were in so i can work an out line so research
would be easier and stuff. ...any-who ...Since my little anti- hero
is a creature of the night and all , and being an ameture astronomer
( and astrologer) myself since i was like 9 ...i tend to describe the
night sky frequently when i write. ....so i fast forward to get to the
desired scene but i like to watch the show in fast forward just to see
if i'll catch anything i didnt notice before...so it hit me like a ton
of bricks..... the moon has phases on the show. -Sailor Jenova (June 24, 2006) |
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Wow. I have never noticed the moon in the series. I am now going to have to go back to see all this. Thanks for the info. and please hurry with your story! ^_^ -Sailor Heva |