backpackerStories | Javier, not a happy story.

^{Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. By @cnandofer}

---

I met Javier a day that I went to the library with Don José, from the first moment I thought that he was a bit introverted and dumb. He was a Chilean backpacker that travelled across Australia for a year, he was in New Zealand for few months until he had his flight back to his country. During our first conversation, he repeated several times that his parents kept asking him to go back to Chile as soon as possible.

Javier was living in the Holiday Park and as most of us, he shared a caravan with friends that he had met during his travels. A few days after we met him, we found out that his friends left him!!! They vanished one night without saying goodbye. Since he could not afford the price of the caravan by himself, he had to move to his tent.

We felt sorry for him, we started to invite him to eat at the dollhouse with us almost every day, we took him with us to parties, to the beach, we were trying to make him feel better.

As the time pass, we found him a bit odd, he would stare at us without saying a word for hours. Sometimes he would say something, most of the time what he said didn't make sense, we didn't really understand what was his problem, but we decided to keep him close in case he needed something.

We spent four or five days going to parties or bars and Javier was always by our side, staring at us, saying stuff that we didn't understand. Finally one day, Javier disappeared, no one knew when he left, where he was or why he left the Holiday Park.

Time passed and at some point, we met someone that was friend with the people that left Javier alone in the Holiday Park. Apparently, when they were travelling with him around Australia, something weird started to happen with Javier's attitude. Gradually he stopped talking to people and he started talking about stuff that nobody could understand. Just like he was acting the last days before that he disappeared.

These people didn't make a big deal of it; just like us. Until one day, when Javier called the police, he believed that the people from the hostel were trying to kill him!!!

---

^{A lot of people may walk the road with you, but at the end, you're the only one responsible for yourself. By @cnandofer}

---

His friends were really worried, they did their best to communicate with Javier's parents in Chile and decided that they had to take him to the doctor. They tricked him by saying that they were going to McDonald's for a burger. I know, it never fails!!!

The doctor diagnosed him with some type of schizophrenia, his friends took care of him for a while until it was just too difficult for them. Tired of a responsibility that was not their responsibility, they decided to go one night without saying anything.

For what this person told us, they were not happy to leave him but they were exhausted from dealing with him. I don't know what happened to Javier, I hope that the day he left the Holiday Park, he did it because he had a plane to take to go back to his family in Chile.

---

More of backpackers.

---