Kelty was experienced in the art of solo adventure.
Emma Kelty, a 43-year-old former head of a London primary school, was reportedly killed by Brazilian river locals during an attempt on a source-to-sea paddle of the Amazon.
Kelty, an adventurer who already has a 2,600-mile trek to the South Pole on her resume, had started her paddle in the Peruvian Andes in February using kayaks the entire trip (according to her blog). But after several strange run-ins with locals along the lower reaches, in Brazil, she apparently triggered a distress signal near Coari, along the banks of the Solimões River, a tributary to the Amazon. She hasn’t been seen since.
She’d fought weather and headwinds and on several occasions met locals who weren’t friendly. “Turned corner and found 50 guys in motorboats with arrows!!! My face mist (sic) have been a picture!! (Town was uber quiet… too quiet!!) all go…,” she wrote on Twitter. Kelty had also been woken up several times during different nights while camping. “Is officially beyond triedness,” she wrote. “Every-night there has been a torch bearer and walker who comes to my tent between 12-3am… i cant function…”
Reports of her actual death have been varied and confusing–and all of them ugly. One source says she was brutaly gang raped, with her throat slit after she was shot with a rifle while lying in her tent. Another says that she was killed with a shotgun before being dumped in the river while a separate report stated the shooter of said rifle died in gang violence and that the bungling bandits actually set off the distress signal themselves as they examined her gear. Some reports are blaming pirates for the murder while others state they were simply drug addicts from a local village. Her stolen tablet, phone, and GoPro were apparently sold. Regardless, Kelty’s end wasn’t fitting of such a brave adventurer who had traveled the planet exploring Earth’s remote places.
One thing is certain: extreme poverty and the black market seems to fuel the river culture in this remote part of central Brazil. Drug runners from Columbia are constantly at war with local pirates, struggling over territory control or simply protecting their product from theft. Of course not all of the culture is corrupt in the region but the remoteness certainly contributes to the lawlessness. Brazilian authorities continue to search for her body.
Kelty had paddled 42 days looking to reach the main Amazon and continue on to the Atlantic Ocean. And she’d been warned by experts of the perils she’d face. “I told her there are people there who have no regard for life,” said Rocky Contos, an American paddler and Amazon expert who guided Kelty in the upper reaches of the drainage. “There are many cases of people being robbed and shot.”
