CARISA LEE

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

A pop­u­lar Ger­man back­pack­er, who was doc­u­ment­ing his walk through Trinidad on Tik­Tok, has been robbed.

But he has vowed to con­tin­ue to show­case the good in this coun­try.

Ti­lo Kruse, 20, who be­gan his walk from To­co to Ica­cos on Mon­day, took to so­cial me­dia to re­veal he was at­tacked and robbed by crim­i­nals.

Kruse said he was at­tacked by crim­i­nals as he walked near Mathu­ra. In a video yes­ter­day, he showed that the ban­dits emerged from a bushy area and de­pict­ed how he was at­tacked and thrown on the ground. He said he man­aged to run and stopped a pass­ing mo­torist, who al­lowed him to jump in­to their ve­hi­cle as he fled the at­tack­ers.

Kruse said he made a po­lice re­port.

The in­ci­dent came even as po­lice said they would be look­ing out for the Ger­man back­pack­er.

Head of the To­co Po­lice Sta­tion, Sgt Chris Ed­wards, said of­fi­cers were look­ing out for Kruse through pa­trols in the area. 
He added that when the back­pack­er ex­its To­co, he will com­mu­ni­cate with his coun­ter­parts in the next dis­trict about what Kruse is do­ing as well. 

Kruse is walk­ing 250 kilo­me­tres in 16 days to show that Trinidad and To­ba­go has more to of­fer than just the neg­a­tive sto­ries seen on the news.

“Be­cause so far, all the peo­ple I’ve met here are su­per nice to me, they buy me food, I’ve been in­vit­ed to trips with strangers, I’ve been giv­en a place to sleep, and all the peo­ple I just met ran­dom­ly on the street,” Kruse said on Mon­day.

But de­spite his or­deal, the 20-year-old said he will not stop his foot jour­ney through the coun­try and still be­lieves in the good­ness of cit­i­zens.

“I still con­tin­ue my jour­ney, I still be­lieve that most peo­ple in Trinidad are good but there def­i­nite­ly are some crim­i­nals out there. I am go­ing to con­tin­ue my walk, but I am go­ing to be hon­est and share this with you guys,” he said.

On the first day of his walk, one man gave Kruse $40, while an­oth­er man gave him wa­ter. Kruse was al­so in­vit­ed to Ra­dio To­co 106.7 for an in­ter­view and an­oth­er woman stopped and gave him $100.

He then re­mem­bered that his goal was to em­bark on a pen­ny-less jour­ney so in­stead Kruse bought $140 TT in snacks from a lo­cal shop, put them in a box, wrote free snacks, and left it by a shed for peo­ple to take.

Af­ter 11 kilo­me­tres of walk­ing Kruse stopped in Cumana at the Ro­man Catholic Church on the To­co Main  Road, where he got a place to sleep. 

“I met two won­der­ful nice ladies in the church to­day and they al­lowed me to sleep in this church tonight, peo­ple might think that I get a place to sleep here be­cause of so­cial me­dia,” he said then. 

Kruse said he ex­changed ap­prox­i­mate­ly two hours of labour and in re­turn got a place to safe­ly sleep and wash up. 

On Tues­day, Kruse was treat­ed to wa­ter at a bar and bake with a lo­cal del­i­ca­cy, all free of charge.