During this period he had to travel through the Hadramaut and Rub 'al Khali deserts, and tasted coffee in Mocha, being one of the first European to undergo such experiences since Pero da Covilhã in 1488 or Francisco Alvares in 1562.

[citation needed] The pair were finally ransomed by the Jesuits in Goa and returned to that city, where they spent some time recuperating from their ordeal.

However, when Za Dengel proclaimed changes in the observance of the Sabbath, Páez retired to Fremona, and waited out the ensuing civil war that ended with the emperor's death.

Susenyos made a grant of land to Páez on the peninsula of Gorgora on the north side of Lake Tana, where he built a new center for his fellow Jesuits, starting with a stone church, which was dedicated 16 January 1621.

Some of the Catholic churches he designed are still standing, most importantly in the area of Bahir Dar and Gondar, which influenced Ethiopian architecture for the rest of the 17th century.

[7] Páez's efforts did not achieve the long-term success that might have been expected because other Jesuits sent to the region afterwards used a rigid approach in their evangelizing methods which led to their expulsion from the territory in 1633.

After almost three centuries, Páez's history was printed as Volumes II and III of Camillo Beccari's Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores occidentales Inedtii (Rome, 1905–17).