Spanish woman emerges after spending 500 days living alone in cave

But after emerging from her subterranean lair in southern Spain a little after 9am on Friday and having a quick checkup with a doctor and a psychologist, Beatriz Flamini was treated instead to a 50-minute press conference in which she endeavoured to explain the almost inexplicable.

Monitored by a team of scientists from the universities of Almería, Granada and Murcia, who kept in touch through special, limited messaging technology, the 50-year-old athlete from Madrid is now thought to have broken the world record for the longest time a person has spent alone in a cave.

She had managed to keep fit, plough through 60 books and use two cameras to chronicle her experiences for a forthcoming documentary.

Flamini thought for a moment and then remembered one particular insect incursion.

While she fell victim to an intense craving for roast chicken with potatoes, the solitude was less of a problem. Before she entered the cave, she told her team that she did not want to be told what was going on outside, even if it involved the loss of a loved one.