Cabeza de Vaca and his companions had continued through Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya; then down the Gulf of California coast to what is now Sinaloa, Mexico, over a period of roughly eight years.
Throughout these years, Cabeza de Vaca and the other men had adapted to the lives of the indigenous people they stayed with, whom he will later describe as Roots People, the Fish and Blackberry People, or the Fig People, depending on their principal foods.
During his wanderings, passing from tribe to tribe, Cabeza de Vaca will later report that he had developed sympathies for the indigenous peoples.
He had become a trader and a healer, which had given him some freedom to travel among the tribes.
As a healer, Cabeza de Vaca used blowing (like the Native Americans) to heal, but claimed that God and the Christian cross led to his success.
His healing of the sick has gained him a reputation as a faith healer.
His group attracts numerous native followers, who regard them as "children of the sun", endowed with the power to heal and destroy.
As Cabeza de Vaca grows healthier, he decides that he willl make his way to Pánuco, supporting himself through trading.
He finally decided to try to reach the Spanish colony in Mexico.
Many natives ate said to accompany the explorers on their journey across what is now known as the American Southwest and northern Mexico.
Thus, Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and Esteban (later called Estevanico), have become the first men of Europe and Africa to enter Southwestern North America (present day Southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico).
Their precise route has been difficult for historians to determine, but they apparently traveled across present-day Texas, perhaps into New Mexico and Arizona, and through Mexico's northern provinces near the Pacific Coast before turning inland.
Cabeza de Vaca will later write a narrative entitled Naufragios (Castaways), in which he describes the journey made by these four survivors on foot across the present day southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
This trek has taken eight years.
Numerous researchers have tried to trace his route across the Southwest.
As he did not begin writing his chronicle until back in Spain, he had to rely on memory.
Cabeza de Vaca was uncertain of his route.
Aware that his account has numerous errors in chronology and geography, historians have worked to put together pieces of the puzzle to discern his paths.
In July 1536, near Culiacán in present-day Sinaloa, the survivors encounter fellow Spaniards on a slave-taking expedition for New Spain.
As Cabeza de Vaca will write later, his countrymen are "dumbfounded at the sight of me, strangely dressed and in the company of Indians.
They just stood staring for a long time."
When New Galicia's governor Nuño de Guzmán heard news about the Spanish castaways who had reached land under their jurisdiction, he gives them horses and clothing and sends them to Mexico City to surrender accounts to the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza.
