Police in Brazil search for missing British tourist last seen walking barefoot to meditate at beauty spot

Katherine Sarah Brewster, 27, is said to have left the remote Dom Jose village to practise meditation at a nearby reservoir and never returned

Police in Brazil were today searching for a British tourist who was last seen heading barefoot to a beauty spot to meditate.

Katherine Sarah Brewster, 27, had reportedly been staying in an hippie commune in Alpestre, in Brazil’s southern state of Santa Catarina.

She is said to have left the remote Dom Jose village early on Sunday to practise meditation at a nearby reservoir and never returned.

Residents of the UniPermacultura alternative community reportedly raised the alarm on Tuesday.

Police began a search of the area yesterday afternoon using sniffer dogs but claimed their efforts were hampered by “rugged terrain”.

Ms Brewster, from London, reportedly left the commune barefoot and wearing light clothes and Bermuda shorts.

She left her mobile phone behind but was carrying her British passport and a credit card, according to investigators.

Last night her younger sister Elizabeth launched a desperate appeal on Facebook for information.

She wrote in Portuguese: “If you have happened to talk to Kat in the last few days, or know where she might be, please contact me. I’m trying to talk to her urgently.”

Villagers last saw her walking towards a wooded area en route to the Foz de Chapeco dam, where she would often go to meditate, according to reports.

Police chief Ercilio Carletti, who is leading the search, said: “She was staying together with an alternative community, a long way in the sticks.

“The community is called UniPermacultura. One of its members came to communicate her disappearance.

“The information we have is that she came to spend time with this community. On Sunday she left to go walking and didn’t come back.

“We’re in contact with the search team to help with sniffer dogs in case she is lost in the woods.

“She could also have left to go voluntarily to another place, because she took her documents.

“One of the hypotheses is that she went into the lake, which is very deep. The area there has many ravines, it’s very complicated.”

The UniPermacultura commune describes itself as “a secular ecovillage, where we live ecumenically respecting all manifestations and religious cults.

“We will respect individuals and their individual choices as long as they do not affect the collective harmony.”

However, yesterday the community’s coordinator denied the Englishwoman had been in the community and had been “staying in the home of a couple situated close to UniPermacultura”.

Ms Brewster arrived in Brazil to “pilgrimage in nature”, according to Brazil’s GauchaZH website.

She reportedly arrived at the Dom Jose community popular with hippies on February 20 after staying with friends in coastal city Florianopolis, southern Brazil.

The wooded area she would walk through runs alongside the vast Uruguay River, where attacks by anacondas, alligators and jaguars have also been reported.

Police yesterday said that the British Consulate in Sao Paulo have been informed about Ms Brewster’s disappearance, who have contacted her family back in the UK.

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