we decided to book a last minute stay at el conquistador in fajardo. we found out about this groupon-type site called gustazos that offers special deals at great prices for hotels, restaurants and different activities. i went onto the website and there was an offer for el conquistador resort. we got super excited because while we were planning our trip to puerto rico, we wanted to travel to one of the many islands off the coast of puerto rico. we wanted to go to culebra but the ferry doesn't always operate and all the reviews and websites suggest booking a flight. junior suggested going to palomino island and when i looked into it, the only access to palomino island is to stay at el conquistador and take the resort's ferry over to the island (unless we found someone with a boat to take us). i looked into the prices of the hotel and we quickly crossed that off our list.
we opted not to plan for anything and just wing it. and to our surprise, we were able to find a deal for el conquistador for 3 days and 2 nights for almost 70% off the regular price. we booked it right away!!
we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the resort but of course our favorite part was our time over at palomino island!! we grabbed the ferry at the resort and took the 10-15 minute ride over to the island. since my boy is an islander, he noticed a bunch of clouds in the direction of the island. we decided to sit inside the ferry instead of on the top, like everyone else,. about 5 minutes out at sea, it started to downpour and everyone came running in!
we arrived at the island and it was beautiful! there were beach loungers all across the shore, a beach front restaurant and even a stable for horseback rides. us being the explorers that we are, immediately started looking for a trail to get us to the top of the mountain. we started hiking in our sandals (we were not prepared to hike!) and saw a sign that said "hidden beach cove 20 minutes" with an arrow headed into the direction we were going. so we kept hiking. 30 minutes later, we found another sign that said the same exact thing! we were so confused lol but we kept hiking. we ended up finding a chapel which the views from the chapel were breathtaking. from the chapel we saw a sign that said the hidden beach cove was only 5 minutes away.
while we were at the chapel, we saw the beach area where the ferry dropped us off and realized we just hiked around the entire island for no reason!! if we would have turned right instead of left when we got off the ferry, we would have found the chapel and hidden beach cove a lot sooner!!! lol
i'm not complaining though!! it was totally worth it once we finally did find the hidden beach. we had the entire beach to ourselves. it was pure heaven!! after we took a bunch of pictures, we laid out on one of the beach loungers (under a palm tree of course) and relaxed for a few hours before heading back. i felt like i had my own private beach and it was amazing!! #lifegoals
photography by blissfulkaos.
outfit details: high waist bikini from h&m (shop below) and dress from here.