Case file · Folklore / legend
The Peabiru trail
In 1541 the Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca followed an Indigenous trail from the Santa Catarina coast to Asunción. This network, the Peabiru, was later said to have been made by Saint Thomas.
1541 CE · -23.91, -52.34 · status: legend
The account
Stretches of the path ran through present-day Paraná, where the town of Peabiru is named after it. Twentieth-century writers linked it to the Inca roads and to lost-city lore.
The sceptical view
The route was a network of Guarani paths, and its link to an apostle is a colonial legend.