View over the skyline from Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama, January 2026

In January and February 2026, a small window opened.
 
Work in Caracas briefly loosened its grip, and I was able to step away for twelve precious days — just long enough to breathe differently, to walk without urgency, to let distance do its quiet work. I flew out of Venezuela and landed in Panama City, initially for a single night. Then onward to Lima and Montevideo. And finally, back again to Panama for two more days before returning to Caracas.
 
A simple route on paper.
A deeply meaningful one in practice.
 
Panama has never been just a stopover for me.
 
Casco Viejo, remembered
 
Much of this short stay unfolded in Casco Viejo, the historic heart of the city and a place that carries layers of memory for me. Narrow streets, worn balconies, pastel façades shaped by centuries of fire, collapse, rebuilding, and resilience. Founded in 1673 after the destruction of the original Panama City by pirates, Casco Viejo has always been a place of reinvention — Spanish colonial bones, French balconies, Caribbean rhythms, and modern life stitched together.
 
Walking there again felt quietly emotional.
 
I passed buildings where I once lived, streets I knew by heart during a previous posting. Cafés where mornings used to begin slowly. Corners that still seemed to remember me, even if only I felt it. Casco has a way of holding time gently — not erasing it, not clinging to it, simply allowing it to coexist.
 
The city beyond postcards
 
Panama City revealed itself again through movement.
 
I walked along Avenida Balboa, where the skyline meets the sea and the Pacific stretches wide and calm, ships waiting patiently in the distance. I wandered through Vía Argentina, lively and familiar, shaded by trees and filled with conversations, cafés, and the easy rhythm of neighbourhood life.
 
And I returned to Ciudad del Saber — the City of Knowledge — where I once worked, thought, planned, worried, hoped. Built on the grounds of the former Canal Zone, it remains a place devoted to ideas, cooperation, and long conversations about the world and how to make it slightly better. Being there again felt like opening an old notebook and recognising your own handwriting.
 
Friends, pauses, and softness
 
This visit was not about ticking places off a list.
 
It was about meeting friends, some old, some newer. About sitting down without rushing. About laughter, shared meals, stories retold and new ones started. About allowing myself to simply be — not on assignment, not in crisis mode, not counting hours.
 
Panama offered that generously.
 
A quiet closing
 
This album captures a gentle interlude between chapters — a moment suspended between Caracas and the journeys that followed, between past versions of myself and the one I am still becoming.
 
It was a return filled with gratitude.
A pause shaped by memory.
A reminder that some places never fully let go of you — and perhaps never should.
 
Panama remains one of those places for me.

Click here to access the album.