Emma Kelty
received a dire warning as she kayaked solo down the Amazon River.
“I will have
my boat stolen and I will be killed too,” Kelty wrote Sept. 10 on Facebook
about an upcoming part of her journey. “Nice.”
It’s not
clear from the post who issued the warning, but Kelty, determined to complete
her journey down the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean, continued downriver.
Three days
later, she was dead.
Kelty, 43,
had quit her job as head of a school in England in 2014 to travel. She had
earlier skied solo to the South Pole and hiked 2,600 miles alone across the
United States.
Her latest
goal had been to kayak solo down the Amazon River from its source in the
Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.
Kelty
documented her journey on Facebook, including what turned out to be her final
days alone on the Amazon.
After
posting the alarming warning she had received Sept. 10, Kelty posted, “Am in
the clear. All ok,” two days later.
But a short
time later she posted, “Today started fighting my paddling way through 20km of
storms!!! Got through town no problem and just took a sigh of relief .... and
then.... Turned corner and found 50 guys in motor boats with arrows!!! My face
mist have been a picture!! (Town was uber quiet... too quiet!!) all good.”
A few
minutes later she amended, “Ok 30 guys .... but either way... that’s a lot of
folks in one area in boats with arrow and rifles.”
In her
next-to-last post on Sept. 13, Kelty wrote that she met three “lovely” locals
and slept with two kittens next to her tent.
Her final
post, also on Sept. 13, reads, “At 1am such a dramatic change in one day....
but such is the river .... every Km is different and just because 1 area is bad
doesn’t mean next is.”
Kelty
triggered a distress signal later that day, reports The Guardian. Brazilian authorities said a band
of seven people approached her camp on an island near the town of Lauro Sodre,
stole her belongings and shot her twice with a shotgun. They dumped her body in
the river.
Police
arrested three people and are searching for the other four, the newspaper says.
A 17-year-old among those arrested told authorities Kelty had been robbed and
murdered. Searchers also are looking for her body in the river.
The chief of
the Amazonas state police said the robbers had tried to sell her two cell
phones, GoPro camera and a tablet computer, reports the BBC.
Friends
posted tributes to Kelty on her Facebook page. Chris Hall wrote, “What an
amazing lady .... she had adventures that no normal human being would have.”
credit: miamiherald.com
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