A woman visiting Iceland turned a missing-person search into an unexpected form of self-discovery.
The strange mix-up happened last Saturday in Iceland’s southern volcanic region near the island’s Eidgja canyon.
The area is remote but popular with walkers and foreign visitors.
The woman was reported as failing to return to her tour bus.
The tour company driver waited for an hour and, when she still had not appeared, notified police.
Search teams were dispatched and began combing the barren, treeless hillsides.
They were looking for an Asian woman described as 5ft 2in, dressed in dark clothing.
The operation only ended at 3am when it emerged the woman had been on the bus the whole time and had even joined the search, unaware anyone had reported her missing.
Before she returned to the coach, the so-called missing tourist had changed her clothes and “freshened up”.
Her fellow passengers and the driver failed to recognise her.
The mistake became clear while the search was underway; she told the bus driver, who then informed police.
Sveinn Runarsson, the police chief in charge of the rescue, said:
“the people on the bus had not been counted correctly”.