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Brownsville, Texas native Arturo Martinez’s three-week vacation to Ontario was supposed to be a quiet, solo getaway.

What he didn’t expect was to meet someone who may be the woman of his dreams.

“I can’t explain it; if I could just tell you one thing it would be easy, but I haven’t ever met anyone like her,” 45-year-old Martinez said. Tweet This

“Her smile, but also the way she talked. She was really nice, sweet, kind, down to earth and really, really funny.”

Martinez has taken out an ad in a local newspaper in search of the “really nice girl from Toronto on a Tour of the Boldt Castle on July 16th.”

A picture of the ad was posted on social media and has been shared hundreds of times.

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Arturo Martinez is seen in a photo during his trip. Handout / Arturo Martinez

Martinez said the two first met when their tour group with ShortTrips.ca was going to Heart Island (of all places) on the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence River.

The pair were pulled aside by border security.

“There was some confusion with our passports. Everyone had gone already, so we were the only two left.”

That’s when the sparks started to fly.

The two ended up exploring Boldt Castle on the island together.

“We explored around together for a while,” said Martinez. “We took a whole bunch of pictures and we just joked around a lot.” Tweet This

The two joined the rest of the tour on the bus and drove about an hour down towards Toronto, stopping at a restaurant along the way with the rest of the group to grab a bite.

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Martinez actually found a table and sat down by himself, thinking that the woman he had met was probably with someone else in the tour group, he said.

“She actually came up to me and started making conversation,” said Martinez. “She started asking me some personal questions, like ‘what’s your background?’ ‘What do you do?’ And all that kind of stuff.”

“At that point, everybody was on the bus and we didn’t even know because we were talking so much,” said Martinez, laughing. “Then we were like, ‘Oh my God, everyone is already leaving,’ and then we just started running outside.”

The two got back on the bus and sat on different ends, getting off at different stops in the Greater Toronto Area.

“If I had another five minutes, I could’ve asked for her phone number or something,” said Martinez, who also didn’t get the woman’s name.

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Martinez said the woman told him she would be going to Centre Island in Toronto on Sunday and they decided he would see her there, not knowing the size of the island.

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“Once I got there I thought, ‘Oh man, there is no way I’m going to find her,’ because I didn’t know how many thousands of people were there.”

A heartbroken and defeated Martinez returned to Texas and immediately began his search for the mysterious woman who stole his heart.

“I’m pretty much losing hope right now.”

He has posted messages on Craigslist, Kijiji, the Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star, but so far has only gotten one response that gives him hope.

“The only message I got… was that some lady said her friend knew the mother of a girl who works for the tour company and she knew who she was and that she had emailed her — but I don’t know if that’s true.”

That’s where the trail ends for Martinez.

He now hopes that the viral post can gain enough traction in the city to help him get in contact with his lady love. He’s even left a clue for her at the bottom of the ad.

It says: “If you are out there, let me know it’s you by telling me the last thing you said before we got on the bus. Hint: it has something to do with the birds.”

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