Panama, Casco Antiguo
Panama, Casco Viejo
Real Estate and Community at Panama´s Historic District


Casco Antiguo has beautiful buildings, parks and scenes, it is true... but nothing beats the beauty of its people. And not beauty in the conventional magazine-model type but on the beauty of feeling just great even if you are wearing hair rolls that are twice the size of your head. And orange.

The other day we came back home and night and there was this woman just walking down the street. She was, as a Latinamerican writer one wrote: an etruscan jar, alias, really big. Especially at the hips, for which most latin women are famous for. Let´s just say this one was really remarkable. She almost took an entire lane of the street. But the amazing thing wasn´t her size, it was the fact that she was wearing a very tight and very white lycra long pants and she did not care at all. As a matter of fact, a guy at the corner immediatly whistled at her (as most latin men do) proving once more that our culture appreciates some "meat on the bone". In fact, we even have a saying about it: "no hay mejor aderezo que la carne sobre el hueso".... leave that one for you to translate.

I´m bringing this today because I just spent a couple of days in Miami and visited the famous Miami Art Basel fair. As always, a very interesting scene, but what I couldn´t get over was the amount of skinny girls trying to be the hipest thing on their design dresses. Granted, they had beautiful faces and bones, but sometimes they go too far with the let´s be skinny part. Looking at some of them was really sad.

So even more refreshing to come back home and enjoy the fact that beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but really in our own perception of ourself. This woman walked as if she owned the world, and who is out there to tell her she doesn´t.  Although I´m all for the center and not the extremes, I think it is important people look inside and feel confident of the love they have for themselves. Beauty comes in all shapes and heights! For Casco Viejo, beauty can be found in every corner, whether a ruin or a restored home, whether at a full black tie event or just playing street futbol at Calle 5ta. Unpretentious, beauty is just there.