"I travelled from Peru to Columbia by spending three days sleeping in a hammock on a cargo ship - alongside cows"
- 7 months ago
A woman saved just $50 travelling 305 miles from Peru to Columbia by spending three days sleeping in a hammock on a cargo ship - alongside cows.
Alina Iliescu, 23, decided to take the cheaper and longer option while travelling from Iquitos, Peru, to Leticia, Colombia - through the Amazon rainforest.
After paying just $20 for the journey - which would usually cost $65 on the fast river boat - Alina bedded down with the locals and livestock for the three-day journey along the Amazon River.
Alina heard about the trip from a fellow traveler at the hostel she was staying at and made her way to the "sketchy" docks where she asked to board a boat.
With just two toilets on board and not being able to shower, Alina says she felt "pretty gross" when she got off.
Food was served directly to her hammock, and she spent the entirety of the three days without phone signal.
Her evenings were spent watching the sunset and pink dolphins swim alongside the cargo boat, while card games with locals and workers filled the majority of her time during the day.
Alina, a recent graduate in Aerospace engineering, from Chicago, US, said: "It definitely felt dodgy, and the docks were pretty sketchy.
"There were two floors on the boat and each floor had a bunch of hammocks and they just transported a load of cargo, cows, chickens and building materials.
"I didn't hear anything about it before I went to Peru but people at the hostel were doing the same trip.
"There's not much about it online but we asked the receptionist, and he told us which dock to go down to and once there you had to ask around and for which boat.
"Then you sit down and wait until someone takes 20 bucks off you and you're on the boat for three days."
Alina says the boat would stop every few hours in small remote settlements - where livestock was loaded on and off.
She said: "It was really interesting to see what they took on and off the boat.
"One time it took eight people to try and get this cow onto the boat.
"It was so remote and some of these villages had like 20 people living in them."
Despite enjoying the journey, Alina says it was a pretty "extreme" form of backpacking.
She added: "You get to interact with the locals, and you don't feel like a backpacker and you're experiencing their way of living.
"It was pretty much all locals on there - around 60 to 100 people and just three westerners.
"It was just a barebones cargo boat.
"They had the poles for you to hang your hammocks up and two bathrooms on the whole boat - you get what you pay for, it was a $20 journey for three days.
"You have to be a certain type of person - that was the most extrema backpacking I've ever done.
"You're not going to shower and you're going to feel pretty gross by the end of the three days, but I feel like it's the most rewarding type of travel you can do."
Alina Iliescu, 23, decided to take the cheaper and longer option while travelling from Iquitos, Peru, to Leticia, Colombia - through the Amazon rainforest.
After paying just $20 for the journey - which would usually cost $65 on the fast river boat - Alina bedded down with the locals and livestock for the three-day journey along the Amazon River.
Alina heard about the trip from a fellow traveler at the hostel she was staying at and made her way to the "sketchy" docks where she asked to board a boat.
With just two toilets on board and not being able to shower, Alina says she felt "pretty gross" when she got off.
Food was served directly to her hammock, and she spent the entirety of the three days without phone signal.
Her evenings were spent watching the sunset and pink dolphins swim alongside the cargo boat, while card games with locals and workers filled the majority of her time during the day.
Alina, a recent graduate in Aerospace engineering, from Chicago, US, said: "It definitely felt dodgy, and the docks were pretty sketchy.
"There were two floors on the boat and each floor had a bunch of hammocks and they just transported a load of cargo, cows, chickens and building materials.
"I didn't hear anything about it before I went to Peru but people at the hostel were doing the same trip.
"There's not much about it online but we asked the receptionist, and he told us which dock to go down to and once there you had to ask around and for which boat.
"Then you sit down and wait until someone takes 20 bucks off you and you're on the boat for three days."
Alina says the boat would stop every few hours in small remote settlements - where livestock was loaded on and off.
She said: "It was really interesting to see what they took on and off the boat.
"One time it took eight people to try and get this cow onto the boat.
"It was so remote and some of these villages had like 20 people living in them."
Despite enjoying the journey, Alina says it was a pretty "extreme" form of backpacking.
She added: "You get to interact with the locals, and you don't feel like a backpacker and you're experiencing their way of living.
"It was pretty much all locals on there - around 60 to 100 people and just three westerners.
"It was just a barebones cargo boat.
"They had the poles for you to hang your hammocks up and two bathrooms on the whole boat - you get what you pay for, it was a $20 journey for three days.
"You have to be a certain type of person - that was the most extrema backpacking I've ever done.
"You're not going to shower and you're going to feel pretty gross by the end of the three days, but I feel like it's the most rewarding type of travel you can do."