Continuity mistake: At the start of the film, when Miguel wins the map, he rolls it up vertically. Later in the film, when they first arrive at the El Dorado island, he takes it out of his shirt and unfolds it horizontally.
Continuity mistake: When Tzekel-Kan introduces the ball-playing team, he states that there are 15 of them. In the next shot, as the team runs back to where they came from, there are suddenly only six of them. The number of players changes constantly throughout the entire ball game.
Continuity mistake: The position of the seagull changes after it dies.
Continuity mistake: When Tzekel-Kan puts the ball on the floor shouting "Play ball," the shadow of the ball is at a completely different angle than it is in the next shot of it.
Factual error: Hernando Cortes is featured as the main background villain. Only thing about his appearance: according to the history books, he never actually ventured into South America to do any conquests; his actions were limited to Cuba, Mexico and California.
Continuity mistake: In one scene the ball players are kneeling in the background while Miguel is protesting Tzekel-Kan's intention on sacrificing them. In this shot, one of them has blue feathers in their hair and one has red feathers. A few seconds later, they lift Miguel on their shoulders, and none of them have any feathers in their hair.
Continuity mistake: Miguel and Tulio are in a barrel of water when they stowaway onto the ship. So when they burst out of it, why aren't they soaking wet?
Continuity mistake: At the end, Miguel notices that Tulio's sail is stuck, so he rides his horse down a huge staircase and jumps onboard in order to save him. In the shot of him jumping on the horse for the first time, the natives are seen in the background on the same level, holding onto their ropes. Then Miguel starts riding down the staircase, and suddenly they are all the way at the bottom, by the river.
Continuity mistake: When the people of El Dorado are bowing after Miguel and Tulio 'make' the volcano stop erupting, Tzekel-kan's assistant magically appears in the hallway in front of them.
Continuity mistake: When Miguel and Tulio are hiding in the barrels on the ship, they push the corks out so they can breath, but a second later the corks have disappeared from the ground.
Factual error: The real El Dorado (Spanish for "the gilded one") civilization was in South America. Specifically, El Dorado is a legend coming from the Muisca people of Colombia. The art scheme of the film is Mayan, a Central American civilization, as are the names of the Indian characters. The ball game, too, although not restricted to the Mayas, is, culturally speaking, Central American (and more specifically, and technically, Meso-American). In addition, the Mayan architectural elements found in the movie are typical of the Mayan culture of the Classic Period (c. 250-900 C.E.), roughly 600 years before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Continuity mistake: When the crowd has Miguel on their shoulders, in one shot his arms are raised, but in the next they're lowered.
Continuity mistake: After Tulio tells the sailors that they have nothing to bet with one of them replies "Oh yeah, I got this" and shows them the map. When he does this, the face of the weeping woman on the map faces to the left, however later in the film when the two men use the map to identify where they are, the woman's face faces forward.
Continuity mistake: After Tulio successfully rolls a seven and wins the map, the dice are visible near the large pile of gold. Then as Tulio begins scooping it up, the pile is much smaller, and the dice are not there anymore.
Continuity mistake: When Miguel and Tulio see the fountain shaped as a weeping woman, there are plenty of trees nearby and rocks are visible in the middle of the river. Later in the film, when Tzekel Kan surfaces at this area after falling into the whirlpool, the nearby trees are totally different, and the rocks in the river have vanished.
Continuity mistake: When Miguel is pulling the leeches off Miguel's back, the position of the leeches change between shots.
Continuity mistake: When Miguel and Tulio are lost at sea in the rowboat, a seagull lands on one of the oars and then dies. They try to get it, but a shark gets to it before them, and bites off the oar while doing so. In the following scenes, the oar is intact again.
Continuity mistake: When the two men bump into the skeletons, one of them has a sword sticking out near its head. A few minutes later, Miguel grabs the sword, and now it is much further away from the skeleton's head.
Continuity mistake: The crying face on the map changes when Tulio looks at the waterfall during "The Trail We Blaze."
Continuity mistake: When Miguel and Tulio fall off the cliff at the end of "The Trail We Blaze" and land next to the tall rock carving, Miguel is briefly knocked unconscious when he hits the ground. When he is first shown on the ground, he is lying with his head a couple of feet away from the rock. A few seconds later when Tulio kneels down to wake him up, he is lying with his back right up against the rock.
Answer: Miguel had just told Chief Tanni how loyal Tulio and he were to each other. Then he overheard Tulio saying to Chel that he wanted to go to Spain with her, ONLY with her "Forget Miguel." That's why Miguel was so upset, because Tulio excluded him from his plans and his life.