This content is blocked because you are not allowing cookies.

To view this content, click on Cookie Preferences here or at the bottom of the page to allow all cookies.

Hugo Ortega, an American, had a well-paying job as an engineer and a long-term girlfriend.

But he wasn’t happy, he said.

“I didn’t like the job that I had. I didn’t like the degree that I had just finished doing,” he said. “I was starting to feel kind of weighed down by a lot of the stuff that I had in my life.”