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I guess. There are other ways of staying safe besides staying inside one's van most of the time. Yoga is not *that* exotic, especially in a village that's used to tourism and has camper vans going through frequently. I am well aware that a solo woman can garner unwanted attention in foreign lands, but at a certain point, we set some boundaries and continue to try and be ourselves. I spend a lot of time in national parks, with a small tent. There's no way for me to do my yoga and physical therapy exercises in that small tent - so I find a place outside to do it. The pose that Esther is shown doing is not all that different from just...standing. IMO.
I do not think the fact that she's balancing on one leg, preparatory to a hike that's almost a climb, is odd at all and if the "entire village" found it necessary or interesting to watch and if there was a disapproving attitude, I sure hope that becomes part of this story. But I think Spain (and France) are very liberal in their attitudes toward women, yoga, eccentric tourist behaviors, etc. That's my experience, anyway.
To some extent, a solo woman is vulnerable - but only to the worst sort of bad actor, not to villages-in-general. People do not suddenly decide to do harm to someone just because they see them do yoga. That person had to already be mentally very very unstable (and if so, someone knows that - LE in a small place usually know that already). It would not be this person's first transgression against women, if you ask me (that's a professional opinion).
Personally, I dismiss most of what is in the press and on social media pages. I focus on facts and these can become easily distorted & clouded on these mediums. I start with the basics. A person is missing and is unaccounted for. This is the crux of the matter – and is an uncontested fact. There is no evidence of the person being in the area that they were last sighted, despite extensive & exhaustive searching. Again this is fact. In seeking an explanation as to why this should be, a strong possibility emerges in that the person has departed from the area of search... If so, there are three possibilities why the person remains missing and unaccounted for... 1) The person left the area of their own violation. 2) The person was abducted. 3) A mixture of 1 and 2, ie, the abductor persuaded the missing person to go with them on some pretext or other, eg, there was an urgent situation that required assistance &/or person's attendance and then, at a later stage, the willing, unsuspecting missing person finds that they have unwittingly become the victim of a kidnap... So, a pre-planned kidnapping or random ?...If it was a random, opportunist abduction, I venture that the abductor would only be interested in taking the person – and not interested in lugging around their backpack. As there has been no sign of a struggle, backpack or other items of personal belongings, clothing etc found discarded anywhere in over two weeks of searching, a strong possibility for this is that these items remained with the missing person when they left the area...If it was re-planned, the abductor would need to know, or have the means to know, where to find the victim... One of my earliest insights into missing persons was the “Black Panther” - Lesley Whittle abduction - and that didn't end well, unfortunately.
From MSM:
<<If she landed in a crevasse, she would be covered by snow with little prospect of being found until the spring>>
So the search has been called off, but there is clearly a 4th possibility: she's in a crevasse, covered with snow, and will not be found until Spring.
And the French Police Chief said "Hopefully she merely got off route and will come back to her car," imply that, at least on the French side, the searching was done along her planned route (normal for a search many places).
So that's a 5th (although increasingly remote possibility that leads back to #4).
It has snowed on the French side since she went missing. They aren't searching under the snow, either.
