A New York City man who spent five months walking from the Big Apple to California had his belongings stolen shortly after completing the cross-country journey.
Chantz Rivera, a Bronx resident, began the trek on May 31. For 149 consecutive days, he walked while hauling his possessions in a shopping cart before finally reaching the West Coast.
After arriving in San Francisco on Oct. 26, Rivera stopped at a McDonald’s near Fillmore Street and Golden Gate Avenue. While there, someone stole a bag containing his portable charger and USB flash drives.
Rivera said he initially was not especially concerned because he was exhausted and feeling ill.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, somebody took something? I don’t care. It ain’t worth nothing. I’m already here [in California],” he told the San Francisco Standard.
He soon realized, however, that the stolen memory cards and flash drive held videos and photographs documenting his journey.
“That’s when I got tight, because you can’t buy those videos,” he said. “That’s all I really care about.”
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The theft was not the only setback Rivera faced after reaching California.
While he was in Sacramento, someone gave him a pair of shoes. Rivera placed them in his shopping cart, which he briefly left unattended.
“I went back to the cart, and it was gone, but that was my fault, because I left them,” he told the Standard. “It was so quick. It was within an hour.”
Rivera, who gained more than 50,000 Instagram followers by sharing updates from the trip, said a fan also offered to arrange a hotel room for him following the McDonald’s theft. The promised booking never materialized.
“They said they booked me. I went there, and then they didn’t even book it. They kind of reserved it, but they didn’t pay for it,” Rivera said.
Still, Rivera’s time in California was not entirely defined by disappointment.
A San Francisco hotel’s general manager provided him with a complimentary two-night stay. Another person bought him pizza and took him on a driving tour to Twin Peaks.