In 1541, Spanish "conquistadores" Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana, from Quito, Ecuador, crossed the Andes Mountains and explored the course of the river to the Atlantic Ocean. The indigenous people called this river the "Conoris". The myth of women warriors on the river has spread in the accounts and books, without any popular scope, still making those regions to receive names of warriors of Greek mythology, the Amazons — among them the largest river in the region that became known as the Amazon River. Early publications, as was the style of the day, called the river after its European explorer, the "Orellana".