Costa Rica

Having arrived a week ago in Costa Rica with my poker squad consisting of Don Emilio and Stanis a.k.a Crazy Sham, I can now proudly say I have had the best month of my life!

Me & Sham arrived at the airport in San Jose on the 7th of September and spent the night at one of the most amazing hostels (Hostel 1110) I have ever been at. I was just having my delicious pizza at the hostel restaurant and suddenly I realized was speaking Dutch with the owner of the place, a native Costa Rican.
A Bulgarian and a Costa Rican communicating in Dutch in San Jose. Who would have thought?
Crazy Sham suggested we extend our stay with a day more since Costa Rica was playing Mexico in a World Cup qualifier at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica the very next day.

Racoon at Irazu volcano

I met three Slovenians, also staying in the hostel, who were planning a to the Irazu volcano early in the morning and luckily for us they gave us a ride and thus we got to see a volcano for the first time in our lives!
Oh, and I almost forgot my hungry friend, the racoon, too!


 When we got back to the hostel we met Carlos and his girlfriend Najira, two mexicanos who were just checking in the hostel and were obviously also planning on going to tonight's big game at the Estadio. We all went to get tickets with their car and grabbed some snacks before we stormed to the stadium. Carlos, wearing a Mexican shirt was feeling a little uncomfortable since we were seated with the Ticos (that's how the Costa Ricans call themselves) In the end he put a jacket on top of his Mexican shirt, even though it was 30 freaking degrees!

Mexico won the game 2-0 by the way.

Crazy Sham, me & Carlito

Najira

The next morning we had to catch the bus from San Jose to Playa del Coco which took us 5;30 hrs. Me & Crazy Sham were tired as hell by the time we arrived but on the good side the condo was freaking shweet. 

The view from our terrasse

Don Emilio, having arrived already, greeted us at the bus station, riding his bike, chillin' in the nowhere. 

Next morning was business as usual for us since very important series of online poker tournaments had already started. Myself and Don E have been grinding from 6 am until 5 pm over the last week. We both broke our own record of online play as we had never played more than 2-3 days in a row. This time it was 7 days, 12-13 hrs a day.
That's what people call dedication.

However, I was lucky enough to score my biggest online result by getting 2nd in one of the tourneys.
These poker series, however, were too good to be missed, were the main reason we could not enjoy this fascinating city called Playa Del Coco to the fullest. The only time we could sneak out of the complex we were staying at was during the afternoon and by night. Cannot really complain about the night life experience as we have already visited the best Italian and Fish restaurants (both places were amazing) and went out couple of times.Now after a full week of grind, it is time to relax with my buddies and look around for some more action downtown. 


PURA VIDA*

brunch with Don E

*Pura Vida literally means Pura = pure and vida = life, but "Pure life" in Spanish would be "Vida pura" instead, so the real meaning is closer to "plenty of life", "full of life", "this is living!", "going great", "real living", "Awesome!" or "cool!". It can be used both as a greeting or a farewell, universally known in Costa Rica and it has been used by many Costa Ricans since 1956.