Panama

There wasn’t a precise moment when I realized Panama was changing something within me.

It was a silent process, like the tide: imperceptible, yet capable of smoothing every inner roughness with the constancy of something that understands time.

I thought I was in search of luxury but in truth, I was heading towards something more subtle, almost sacred: the essence of a place that has no need to display itself, because it already breathes beside you.

I had left Europe with my mind filled with polished expectations: spectacular suites in Punta Pacífica, sunsets sipped from suspended terraces, infinity pools as promises of perfection. But Panama overturned every image, inviting me to see the world with new eyes, eyes that do not expect, but marvel.

Bocas del Toro

It was Bocas del Toro that cast the first spell. On the island of Bastimentos, nestled within the National Marine Park, I discovered that silence can dwell even among palm trees and wooden piers. The overwater villas at Nayara Bocas Bali seemed to float between dream and reality, but what moved me most was the still equilibrium of the turtles gliding slowly beneath the glass floor. The mangroves, gently stirred by the Caribbean breeze, reflected ancient thoughts.

It wasn't architecture that spoke to me, but intention: every gesture, every space seemed created to leave untouched what was already perfect.

In the morning, the sea breeze carried with it the scent of freshly grated coconut and yuca bread baking in local ovens. Breakfast became a ritual: golden tortillas cooked on the comal, dipped into glasses of chicheme, an ancestral drink of corn, cinnamon, and coconut milk, dense and velvety like lullabies told by grandparents.

Islas Secas, Gulf of Chiriquí 

Then came the Gulf of Chiriquí, and with it, the sweetest solitude I have ever known.

Off the Pacific coast, not far from Puerto Pedregal, lies a private archipelago called Islas Secas: fifteen islands, only four inhabited, entirely powered by solar energy, where the word “exclusivity” finds a new meaning: harmony. What drew me in was not luxury, but the intelligence of the project: here, each structure withdraws, yields to the tropical forest, rests upon the natural contours like a discreet guest.

I slept with open walls, canvas sails lifted to the sky, letting the wind caress me and the stars, untroubled by light pollution, keep watch.

One evening, as the sun sank behind Cavada Island, I tasted a corvina ceviche that seemed to distill the entire Pacific into a single bite. The flesh, firm and translucent, was marinated in the fresh juice of lemons grown at a finca in David, while the coriander was crushed between fingers and scattered like a benediction. The chombo chili, typical of the western coast, tingled without overwhelming: a sudden, gentle heat, like certain emotions you didn’t know you were waiting for. The dish was served on local ceramics, hand-molded by artisans in Volcán, and it spoke, without words, of a land that knows itself.

Boquete

Boquete welcomed me with a soft sigh. Nestled at the foot of the Barú volcano, this mountain town seemed to breathe a different rhythm. The rains arrived noiselessly, transparent caresses soaking the slopes and making the leaves glisten like blown glass. I walked among the wild orchids of the Jardín de las Nubes, the trail vanishing into mists and vines, and it seemed to me even silence had a scent: damp earth, mosses, the air before a confession.

And then, there was the coffee...

A cup of Geisha from the Hacienda La Esmeralda plantation opened in me a new kind of listening. I wasn’t drinking it, I was following it, as one follows an orchestra in crescendo. Notes of bergamot, the barely-there touch of jasmine, a citrus echo of cedar peel.

I understood in that moment that drinking this coffee wasn’t an act, it was an encounter.

San Blas and Chagres: the Guna and Emberá peoples 

But Panama is not only nature: it is voice, skin, living memory.

In the islands of the Guna Yala archipelago, also known as San Blas, women still wear molas: hand-stitched textile panels, layered with geometric patterns that narrate cosmogonies, oral stories, spiritual maps.

In a bamboo hut on Wichub-Wala Island, an elder woman took my hand and placed it on a freshly finished cloth. “Sentí,” she said. And the word pierced through me. I felt the devotion, the slow precision, the strength of time held in every stitch.

Along the Chagres River, in the heart of the forest that outlines Soberanía National Park, it was the Emberá who offered me the joy of rhythm. Their songs rose among the tall tree canopies, mingling with the cries of toucans and the whisper of water. In that village, accessible only by piragua, they served me golden, crispy fried yuca with a broth of wild vegetables deepened by notes of cumin and culantro leaves. No pretense. Just truth. Flavors like words whispered by the earth.

Casco Viejo, Panama City

In the heart of Panamá, Casco Viejo unfolded like a palimpsest. Colonial houses with wooden shutters and bougainvillea-covered balconies seemed to converse with echoes of French and Spanish pasts, while contemporary art galleries and cocktail bars wove themselves into the old stone.

In Plaza Bolívar, I paused to listen to a melody played by an old clarinetist. It felt as if the air itself carried the taste of rum, tobacco, and memory.

In a small artisan shop on Avenida Central, I bought a Panama hat, real, not tourist-made, handwoven in Montecristi, Ecuador, but finished with Panamanian care. The seller, a man with time-etched hands, didn’t speak much. But every gesture, every fold, was a form of respect.

At dinner, in a jasmine-scented courtyard, I savored ropa vieja served with crisp patacones. The shredded beef was tender, speckled with spices and the sweetness of peppers, while the twice-fried plantains echoed the memory of Afro-Panamanian cooking. Then came the tamales, wrapped in banana leaves. Lifting them, a green and fragrant steam rose to my face like an embrace. Inside, the rice was soaked in a spiced broth, laced with achiote and tender corn. A dish that doesn’t perform. It tells a story.

The Canal, Miraflores

At the Miraflores Visitor Center, it wasn’t the ships that captivated me, but the very concept of crossing. The Panama Canal is an idea before it is an engineering feat: an idea that unites, that opens passages where geography seemed to draw boundaries.

It was here I sensed Panama as a symbol, not just a bridge between oceans, but between worlds, stories, languages. And in that moment, with the Pacific on one side and the Atlantic on the other, I felt something shifting within me. A threshold was opening.

Santa Catalina and Bastimentos

Finally, a return to a more intimate nature. In Santa Catalina, a small village on the Pacific coast famed among surfers for the perfect waves of Playa Estero, I would wake before dawn. I’d rise to the terrace of my wooden lodge and practice yoga with the breath of the ocean before me and the sand still cool beneath my feet. It was alignment, not just physical, but internal.

At Isla Bastimentos, at the eco-retreat Al Natural, I received a treatment made with pure cacao blended with tropical flowers gathered from the jungle. It wasn’t a spa whim: it was a gesture of mutual care. Me for myself, nature for us.

In that profound silence, broken only by the distant song of red frogs and the rustle of plantain leaves, something realigned.

Panama taught me that true luxury is never display.

It is presence. Not accumulation, but attention.

It is the awareness that every experience is unrepeatable, like light filtering through leaves at sunset, or the hoarse voice of a fisherman recounting the tide.

This country resists definition. But for those who know how to slow down, who know how to truly see, it opens its arms.

And perhaps, as it did with me, it leaves you changed. No longer merely a traveler, but part of a silent song that the land keeps singing

 Author: Saluen Art