If you had asked me where one might board a cruise ship to tour the Mediterranean Sea, there are several places that I might have guessed. Barcelona, perhaps, or Athens. I might even have believed Israel or somewhere in Northern Africa. Faro, Portugal would not even have made the list. For one thing I had never even heard of the place, although I suspected that might have something to do with my American sensibilities about geography. The more pertinent thing was that Faro, just like every other part of Portugal, was not on the Mediterranean Sea at all, but rather the Atlantic Ocean. Choosing this place for the starting point of the cruise baffled me. The explanation, as best I could figure it, was that while the name of the tournament was The Mediterranean Ultimate High Roller the actual cruise itself was called The Voyage into the Mediterranean, and apparently they meant that literally. Instead of having the entire cruise take place in the sea as one would expect, we would instead be starting out in the ocean and entering the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar.

I touched down at the Aeroporto de Faro several days in advance of the beginning of the tournament with the intention of shaking off the jet lag before the event began. I had been successful in securing the loan from the bank, and a card with my three hundred thousand dollars on it was safely stashed away in a pouch under my clothing, protected from pickpockets and other dangers. I had been watching poker religiously for weeks now, and not just the clips with Alva in them like I had been doing before. There would be several incredibly skilled players out there and I had to make sure I studied all of them and learned how they played. I didn’t have much of any chance at placing in this event anyway, but every little edge helped. I spent most of my time in Faro watching footage and furiously taking notes, holed up in my hotel room with nothing but a cup of coffee and a laptop in front of me.

Of course, I could hardly take my first trip to Portugal and not do at least a little sightseeing. I wandered around a bit, looking at the beautiful old world architecture and visiting a few historic sites. One in particular that caught my attention was the Igreja do Carmo, a gorgeous old Catholic church from the 18th century. The White exterior with its twin bell towers housed an interior decorated with breathtaking wooden carvings that boggled the mind with their intricacy, surrounding the depictions of religious figures in a forest of swirling wooden leaves. The main church wasn’t the thing that caught my attention, however, but rather the small chapel in the back, with some rather unusual decoration choices.

I stared at the wall of the Capela dos Ossos, and a human skull stared back at me. This was only one of twelve hundred very real human skulls that lined the small chapel’s interior. These were the remains of monks who had once served the church here and now had their skeletons integrated into the very architecture of this chapel whose name translated to “Chapel of the Bones”. When I had entered the macabre little place of worship, I had seen an inscription over the door which read Para aqui a considerar que este estado has de chegar, which my tourist guidebook translated for me as “stop here and consider that you too will reach this state”. It was a somber message, but in a strange way I almost found it a little comforting.

If this is what we’re headed for anyway, risking it all for a woman doesn’t seem so bad. Said the little voice in my head.

A few other tourists came and left, but I myself stuck around for quite a long time, even after I had fully taken in the sight of all the bones on the walls and ceiling. I just couldn’t seem to tear myself away, and so I stayed right where I was, getting the full value out of the two euros I had paid to get in here. One thing I noticed about all the people who were touring this chapel, myself included, is that nobody talked. The atmosphere just didn’t feel right for conversation, so when one of the people who I saw entering the building out of the corner of my eye came up and began speaking to me, in English no less, I was quite startled.

“This is fascinating, isn’t it? One has to wonder what all these monks would think knowing that this would be their final resting place?”

The English, though spoken perfectly in a silken baritone, was tinged with a distinct Spanish accent. I turned to see who the speaker was, and my eyes nearly popped out of my head in surprise. Standing beside me was a face I recognized very well, not from having met this person before but rather from having seen them many times in my research into the poker scene. I was in the presence of a poker legend, the greatest currently walking the earth, the highest-earning player of all time, Spanish superstar Vincente Alcon. He was tall, several inches taller than me, and had that suave air to him that only Latin men could pull off. He smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of perfectly white teeth.

“You’re… you’re Vincente Alcon, right?” I asked, simply looking to confirm what I already knew.

“That I am! How serendipitous that you would be a poker fan! I run into people who recognize me in the strangest places, although I must admit few are quite so strange as this.”

“So you’re here for the tournament, right?” I asked him. “I’m going to be entering as well.”

“Really? Now that is a surprise. I didn’t expect to see any new faces at such a prohibitively expensive event. I thought I would have met all the big players by now. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, sorry. It’s Bryson Daley. As you probably guessed I’m from America.” I was sure I had “American tourist” written all over me. Why else address me in English?

“Good to meet you Bryson!” Vincente shook my hand with a solid grip, “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you at the tables. The great thing about poker is that it allows you to meet new people from all over the world in all sorts of wonderful places. Speaking of which, would you believe this is my first trip to Portugal?”

“Really?” I asked him.

“Absolutely.” he said, “Imagine that. Here I am, a Spaniard who has been to six different continents, and this is my first time visiting my own next-door neighbor.”

“I’ve never been to Mexico, so I guess we’re both guilty of that.” I admitted, although I didn’t bring up that I was now standing on only the second continent I had ever visited.

Vincente didn’t respond to this, but rather turned his attention to the wall of the chapel and leaned his face right up to a skull as though he were trying to stare it down. He narrowed his eyes and stroked his chin, scrutinizing the monk’s remains up close.

“What a strange legacy you’ve left, friend.” he said, speaking to the skull.

“It’s humbling to look at, isn’t it?” I asked him, “That inscription on the door really puts things into perspective.”

“The inscription on the door is wrong,” said Vincente calmly but forcefully, not breaking eye contact with the skull’s hollow sockets.

“What do you mean? Everybody dies,” I pointed out.

“The inscription does not say that you will die,” Vincente replied, “It says that you will ‘reach this state’. Look at the state these monks are in. Can you tell one from another? Do you see names written on them anywhere? Not even the men who built this chapel knew the identities of the people they exhumed to get the materials. These men are not only dead physically, but they have faded from memory as well. That state, my friend, is one which can yet be avoided.” He finally broke his gaze away from the skull and returned his attention to me. “What do you want to be remembered for, Bryson?” he asked.

“I guess I never really gave that any thought,” I said. “I don’t think I had ever considered the possibility.”

“Most don’t,” he told me, “and that is why they end up lost in this tapestry of faceless death.” he gestured around at the walls and arched ceiling where hundreds of skulls stared at us in unblinking silence. “The only man in this room who overcame that fate is the one right there,” he continued, pointing to a crucifix on one end of the room where a small figure of Jesus Christ was affixed to a wooden cross at one end of the chapel, “and that is whose example I intend to follow. I will see you at the tournament Bryson.”

Without another word, Vincente Alcon walked out of the Capela dos Ossos, leaving me alone with the ever-watching skulls. I wasn’t sure what to make of the strange speech that I had just heard. I turned to look at the skull that Vincente had been staring at before.

“So what did you think of all of that?” I asked the skull.

The skull, of course, said nothing.

A short while later, I finally decided that I had seen enough of the odd little chapel, and I made my way back towards my hotel room. The tournament would be starting the next day, and I wanted to be well rested. I kept an eye out as I walked to see if by any chance I might spot Alva, who I was sure would be in Faro by now, but no such chance encounter occurred. I had probably used up my only fluke meeting of the day by running into Vincente. What an unusual man he was, verbose and charming and strangely philosophical. Between him and Alva I was already beginning to feel very out of place as a small town American guy entering this world of larger-than-life people. For the millionth time I wondered just what I was doing here with no real plan and no exit strategy. Did I expect to cash at the tournament? It seemed unlikely at best. Did I expect Alva to fall in love with me? Not realistically, no. Truth be told, I expected to go home a jobless and deeply indebted man, and to eventually end up a nameless skull like one of those monks.

At least I could say this for the monks, though, they never stopped being dedicated to their task. Even now they were still doing their part contributing to the place of worship. I wasn’t a particularly religious man, but I had to wonder, did it really matter if Vincente or I knew who these men were or what they had done? They didn’t do it for us, they did it for the man hanging on the cross at the end of the chapel. I liked to think, doubter though I was, that that man knew each and every one of them and what they had given for him. If that was true, maybe the monks wouldn’t have been so unhappy with their fate as Vincente seemed to think.

With these thoughts swirling in my head, I arrived at my hotel and went into my room to get some sleep before the big day tomorrow. I had dozed off before my head hit the pillow.