A New York City man who walked cross-country from the Big Apple to California over five months had his belongings stolen after stepping foot in the Golden State.
Bronx resident Chantz Rivera started his lengthy trek on May 31, walking continuously for 149 days while dragging all of his belongings in a shopping cart before reaching the West Coast.
After landing San Francisco on Oct. 26, he went to a McDonald’s near Fillmore Street and Golden Gate Avenue — only to have a bag with his portable charger and USB flash drives swiped.
Rivera said that he initially didn’t mind because he was tired and sick.
“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.
But then he realized his memory cards and flash drive contained videos and pictures from 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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But his troubles didn’t end there.
While Rivera was in Sacramento, someone gifted him a pair of shoes that he put in his shopping cart left 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 built a following of more than 50,000 on Instagram while documenting his trip, also said a fan offered to book him a hotel after the McDonald’s theft — but never followed through.
“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.
But not all his California experiences were negative.
The general manager of a hotel in San Francisco gave him a free two-night stay, he explained, and another person treated him to pizza and gave him a driving tour up to Twin Peaks in San Francisco.
