British woman found after barefoot walk in Brazil jungle
A BRITISH woman who vanished for five days after walking barefoot into the Brazilian jungle only wanted “time alone” to meditate, her mother said, after she was found alive yesterday.
Dr Diane Brewster said her daughter Katherine called her to say she was “amazed” to discover how much of a “fuss” had been made over her welfare.
The 27-year-old had been missing since disappearing into the wilderness to meditate at a remote beauty spot.
Police had been looking for Ms Brewster, from Brighton, East Sussex, ever since she left a host family on the outskirts of a hippie commune in Alpestre, in the southern state of Santa Catarina.
“We are extremely relieved and thankful,” Dr Brewster told The Daily Telegraph. “She’s absolutely fine. She went out on a kind of meditation and has come back to find it all kicking off.
“She’s been really quite surprised by it all. As far as she was concerned everything was fine and she’s come back to find this fuss. I’ve spoken to her on the phone and she’s fine. She is giving interviews to Brazilian media.” The people of the Unipermacultura alternative community reported her disappearance on Tuesday when she left with only her passport and credit card. Last night they shared a photograph showing she was wearing the same clothes she had left in, with her legs covered in scratches after apparently getting lost in thick undergrowth.
Neli da Terra, a local, wrote on Facebook that Ms Brewster was “a guest for a period of 32 days, in search of a contact with earth and nature, always with a quiet behaviour and relationship and without causing any damage to the community and our family”.