 During his stay in there, Sancho improved and expanded the Portuguese fortress of "São Caetano", which had been started by Pêro de Anaia in 1505, and organized and led a great number of exploratory missions around the area of present-day Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.Although these missions are poorly documented, he is supposed to have been one of the first Europeans ever to contemplate the ruins of Great Zimbabwe (then referred to by the Portuguese as Monomotapa).He died in Lisbon around the age of 75, and was buried next to his wife in the church of the monastery of Xabregas.