DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Missouri man found in Syria told NBC News on Thursday that he spent months in a Syrian prison after entering the country on a “pilgrimage” to Damascus. It was not widely known that the man who identified himself as Travis Timmerman, who went missing in Hungary in May, was in Syria.

His discovery came as a shock to locals and journalists as thousands of prisoners emerged from prison following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend.

Timmerman, who initially identified himself only as “Travis,” was first seen in a video that emerged overnight, leading some to misidentify him as missing American journalist Austin Tice, 43.

Surrounded by reporters, Timmerman, 29, leaned against walls with peeling paint and said he was stopped by Syrian officials earlier this year after entering the country on foot.

“I was on a pilgrimage to Damascus,” he told NBC News in a building on the outskirts of the capital. He said he lived in a mountainous area on the Lebanon-Syria border “without food and water” for three days before he was discovered and arrested by a border guard. Timmerman said he was detained by the regime for months, during which “I was well fed, I always had water, the only problem was that I couldn’t go to the toilet regularly.

He was subsequently released by rebel forces who broke into regime prisons across the country to release prisoners.

Timmerman said he has spent the last few days wandering the streets barefoot and sleeping outside and in an abandoned house. He was then found again by a local asking for water and subsequently appeared in the video, which quickly spread on social media and attracted media attention.

After being tracked down in Dhiyabia by NBC News and other media outlets, Timmerman said he “read a lot of scripture” before deciding to cross the mountains from Lebanon into Syria. He seemed calm.

When one man repeatedly offered to put him in touch with U.S. officials, he responded that he was “fine at the moment.” He later told NBC News that he felt his incarceration was “actually good for me,” describing it as “a time of comfort, of meditation, and I’m stronger for it.”

He said he now plans to travel to Jordan before attempting to return to Damascus and will try to contact his family, whom he said he has not yet spoken to.

A U.S. official told NBC News that Washington “was aware of reports of an American found outside Damascus who wanted to provide assistance. Out of respect for his privacy, we cannot provide any further information at this time.”

Timmerman said he was in Europe before beginning his pilgrimage.

Authorities in Missouri and the Hungarian capital Budapest had released missing persons reports earlier this year for a man named Pete Timmerman, with Hungarian police identifying him as “Travis” Pete Timmerman.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a bulletin that Timmerman disappeared in Budapest, Hungary, on May 28, nearly seven months ago.

Timmerman was identified by Budapest authorities in a request for information as “Travis Pete Timmerman.” They said he was last seen in a church and had since “gone to an unknown location with no signs of life.”

Matt Bradley and Richard Engel reported from Damascus and Chantal Da Silva from London.