 The initial idea to write a book about Simón Bolívar came to García Márquez through his friend and fellow Colombian writer Álvaro Mutis , to whom the book is dedicated . Mutis had started writing a book called El Último Rostro about Bolívar 's final voyage along the Magdalena River , but never finished it . At the time , García Márquez was interested in writing about the Magdalena River because he knew the area intimately from his childhood . Two years after reading El Último Rostro , García Márquez asked Mutis for his permission to write a book on Bolívar 's last voyage . 
