Caracas Chronicles

To document a country at the height of a historic turning point is to face a fragile and unstable reality. But when that country is, or once was home, it becomes something else entirely— a reckoning, a testament to what was, and a confrontation with what remains. In late July, I found myself back in Venezuela as a photojournalist for the first time, covering the presidential elections. I felt a dizzying duality—feeling at once deeply rooted yet profoundly estranged from a place where I once truly belonged. 

Before this trip, I felt somewhat disconnected from Venezuela. Embarrassingly so, I scarcely followed the local news and relied on scattered updates from family members, friends, international outlets or social media. Over the last 13 years that I’ve been abroad, I unconsciously distanced myself, visiting less as time passed.

The country’s recent story was incoherent as if from a surrealist tale, where ordinary rules didn’t apply, with actions and consequences out of sync, with political figures and self-proclaimed saviors appearing and disappointing constantly, and new waves of crisis every few years. 

It became too much to keep up with. Growing up, hope so often collided with heartbreak that I learned to stop hoping altogether, to stop watching closely from far away. 

Returning to cover the elections for The New York Times brought everything back into focus as if I had never left. The crisis was tangible in a way that I had never experienced before, in the voices silenced by the vacuum of poverty, in the spaces where politics wanted to be ignored but couldn’t, in the lives stripped of what little they had left, and in the broken families. I was seeing it all from the front row.

I saw the consequential pain of separation from within—Venezuelans dropping everything they knew, chasing the unknown for a chance at something better, and the ache of those left behind. I saw it in the banging of pots and pans, the waving flags, the motorcycle rallies, the hymns and slogans, the posters filled with hope and rage. It was in every sacrifice, every conversation, and every look on every face, in one way or another everyone was affected. Documenting this moment in Venezuelan history was one of the most gratifying and difficult experiences of my career. 

Maracaibo and the Campaign Trail 

Arriving in Venezuela as a photojournalist was something I had only dreamed of, but there I was, at the welcome dinner with the whole NYT team, talking with colleagues I had admired for years while overhearing the familiar hum of the Venezuelan accent at a nearby table. I was having trouble reconciling these two versions of my life, as if past and present were clashing with each other at that dinner table.

My first assignment took me to Maracaibo with NYT reporter Frances Robles. The once-vibrant streets were now empty as garbage piles accumulated in forgotten corners. We reported a story on the decline of Maracaibo, focusing on grandparents left behind to care for grandchildren, the middle generation gone in search of stability. In Mr. Toño’s house, I met Rafa, a seven-year-old boy who played FIFA with the same intensity my brothers once did, obsessed with Cristiano Ronaldo and determined to be a soccer star like almost every Venezuelan boy. Rafa’s brown skin had a toasted tone from hours spent playing outside in the Maracaibo sun, and his dark brown eyes were a mix of innocence and hope. We connected as if the world outside didn’t exist. Meanwhile, his grandmother in tears, spoke of her children scattered across the globe, leaving behind a responsibility she never anticipated. Her story is the experience of millions of Venezuelans; a family broken.

The next day we visited Irma, who cared for seven grandchildren, their laughter and energy a stark contrast to her exhaustion. The house was alive with movement as the children chased the pet goat, and I tried to capture their youthful joy. Beneath their laughter, was a weight—the true cost of the exodus, of a generation that left and another left behind. I captured movement, light, energy, and emotion. There, I took my favorite photo of the trip. The colorful interior of the home and the bright hues of the children’s clothing were all perfectly highlighted by the fierce sun coming in through the side door of the living room. That image ended up on the paper’s front page on a September Sunday some months later. 

Irma’s resilience lingered with me as we moved on to cover the opposition’s press conference later that day, where the heat was overwhelming. Hundreds of journalists were packed into a small room with barely any AC. As the hours passed, a campaign representative informed us that María Corina Machado had been intercepted, her sound and press trucks taken away, and her path blocked, once again. She and her team arrived two hours late but she walked in with a fierce determination, speaking with conviction. I began to realize the kind of leader she was, a woman facing a country that needed a caring mother, a feminine energy to save it, a voice full of assurance that connected on an emotional level— something beyond the political. There, I understood why this time people said “It felt different.”

Outside, the streets of Maracaibo were filling up for the rally. A sea of motorcycles, bicycles, roller skaters, and people on foot formed a ring of protection around us as we departed. The further we went, the tighter the space became, and the louder the crowd. It was as if everyone who remained in what seemed like an abandoned city was here, waiting for MCM and Edmundo González. I climbed onto the roof of the improvised press truck, camera in hand, riding the wave of human emotion—a tide of Venezuelans crying out for help, for freedom, for something better. And in that moment, I felt it all, as if reconnected with everything I had not felt for years, tears in my eyes, straddling the line between hope and despair reflecting on my own broken family, my migration experience, and my connection and disconnection with this country, knowing that part of the reason I chose this work was because of the roots I have in this place, this difficult reality that is to be Venezolana.

It struck me slowly, and then all at once, that Venezuela isn’t just a place I’m from but a force that shaped me—its instability, its colors, its people, and its tangled history all woven deeply into the person I am today.

Maracaibo stayed with me, its empty desaturated streets and quiet grief, the days wandering through abandoned streets, listening as Maracuchos recounted the loves that migration had taken from them.

Back in Caracas, the campaign’s closing event was set for the main avenue of Las Mercedes. We rode out on the motorcycle, Jonathan—my driver—steady beneath my arm’s grip. We sped down the Francisco Fajardo highway, a route I’d traveled countless times. Once a child on her way to school, now a journalist heading to the rally of a candidate who had rekindled the fragile hope that the dictatorship could perhaps, finally end. The Ávila loomed behind us and the Caribbean air caressed my skin like an old love. I held tighter to Jonathan as pride and a wave of bittersweet nostalgia washed over me, as we headed toward a future I allowed myself, for an instant, to believe in.

I looked around and struggled to believe the situation I was in. What am I doing here? When did it happen, exactly, that the girl who once carried a camera for fun, became this woman standing at the edge of her country? When did that quiet fascination with light and color shift into something heavier, something with consequence, until it was no longer just a photograph but a record of history? When did I become this?

We arrived in Las Mercedes, charged with a kind of restless energy. Around us, people shouted, motorcycles revved, and people in their white shirts wore rosaries and clutched flags tight like a lifeline, a symbol of belonging in this fractured country. 

The crowd waited for Maria Corina Machado. Anticipation was thick in the air. Tears were tracing down faces worn by the weight of a broken Venezuela. They held signs, not just of protest but of grief, of loss, telling stories. Joy and sorrow intertwined as if they waited for an apparition, something more than human.

She moved among them like a vision, and the energy flowed between them, feeding off each other, lifting something larger and more powerful than just the crowd. For a moment, it felt like the nation might rise again. I photographed well enough, though it wasn’t my best. The images didn’t come easily, not at first. When it was over, I hugged Jonathan, and we made our way back to the hotel. I ordered room service, trying to settle my nerves. The shift from the crowd’s wild energy to the stark quiet of the hotel room was jarring, the silence was so loud.

Between the campaign’s close on the 25th and the elections on the 28th, I went to my aunt’s house—I did my laundry, ate homemade food, and enjoyed the ease of familiar surroundings. I saw friends and family but felt somewhat disconnected from them. Coming from Maracaibo and the frenzy of the campaign trail to the quiet comfort of Venezuela’s privileged class—it was disorienting in a way. I felt the distance between two worlds.

I started to realize just how much this work weighs on my life and relationships. It places you close to the reality of collective suffering and the immense struggles tied to it, challenging you to find the images that make the crisis tangible.

It pulls you into the heart of chaos, and when you come out, you sometimes feel a quiet distance from those whose lives have remained steady.

The day before the election, I set out with local team members to do as much pre-production as I could. They led me through neighborhoods unfamiliar to me. As we rode, the conversation turned to my disconnection from the city I grew up in, the bubble in which I had been raised. I spoke candidly, weighed down by some guilt for feeling estranged in my own city. They laughed softly, recognizing both my privilege and the distance that lay between my experiences and theirs. To me, they embodied the essence of Venezuelan resilience—caught in the throes of the country’s crisis, eagerly awaiting the moment they could reclaim their lives, all while reporting on it. My admiration for Venezuelan journalists just kept growing. 

Election Day

On election day, we set out at 5AM., Jonathan and I headed toward El Marqués—the neighborhood where my father had grown up, where I had spent many cherished moments with my grandmother until her passing. A middle-class neighborhood bordering Petare, it held a quiet familiarity.

That morning I woke with a restless sharp-edged energy, drawn into the warm light beginning to rise over Caracas. We moved from voting center to voting center, the sun climbing higher with each stop. As it rose, I composed images: the worn lists where Venezuelans searched for their assigned voting tables by ID, the serpentine lines of people winding through the streets. The entire process felt archaic, as though frozen in the ’90s. That morning, time felt elastic, measured less by the clock than by the shifting air. 

In the afternoon, I met one of the reporters at the hotel; she had plans to visit polling centers anticipated to face difficulties as closing time approached. We set out for one in Las Minas de Baruta, a popular working-class neighborhood. We navigated the area through narrow, steep streets that grew ever smaller, with homes becoming increasingly informal and compact, clinging to the hillside above. Everything was strikingly photogenic, and the atmosphere was surprisingly calm. As we arrived, I captured images of the end of the voting line and conversations among voters debating whether those outside would be permitted entry. 

The few who arrived after 6 PM insisted on voting, but the officials and guards informed them they could no longer let anyone in, discontent grew, and more people began to gather outside the polling center. Tensions began to rise like a held breath. Voices grew louder, fueled by frustration over the denial of entry to the witnesses, who by law had the right to observe the vote count. The National Guard stood firm against allowing them access, and the conflict escalated. An opposition woman attempted to soothe the crowd, reassuring them that there were already members of her group inside and that all would be well. Yet, the crowd erupted into chants: “Y va a caer, y va a caer, este gobierno va a caer” and I couldn’t help but feel excited. 

I climbed into the home of neighbors who had a vantage point from their living room window. They told me that they had observed every election from that very spot, from Chávez in 1999 to the present. Today, they felt a palpable difference.

They asked me if I thought “we” were going to win, and I couldn’t help but shed tears. I didn’t know what lay ahead, but I agreed that something felt different.

Their son slept in front of the TV, which blared news of the polling centers’ closure and I had to put my emotions away to keep working. 

I returned downstairs and saw police arriving on their motorcycles, attempting to calm the growing crowd that demanded the witnesses be allowed in. The chants rang out, “Y ya cayó Y ya cayó este gobierno ya cayó!” “No quiero bono, No quiero CLAP, Yo lo que quiero es que se vaya Nicolas!” The police formed a divide between the protesters and the witnesses meant to oversee the count. Two young women confronted the National Guard, their voices trembling with anger and sorrow as they spoke of family separations and the suffering they had endured. It was a moment to capture, and that image would end up on the front page of the international paper the next day. She was speaking for so many. 

We remained there until about 10 PM and then headed to the opposition’s campaign HQ. There was little activity initially; many journalists waiting for news. I was exhausted. While some of my team members headed to the CNE to witness the delivery of the results, Frances joined me at the HQ. We lingered until past midnight, debating whether it was worth waiting there for the results. We were uncertain when they would be announced, and I still had editing work ahead.

Back at the hotel, when the results started to be announced I came close to the TV in the lobby. So many times before, this feeling, this anticipation, somewhere between the late hours of the night and early hours of the morning, waiting to hear that Chavez and now Maduro, had fallen.

The announcement came: Maduro won, with 51%.

How could this be possible in a broken Venezuela? It felt incoherent with the collective cry for change, the anger and hope that filled the streets. The weight of the announcement landed like a heavy stone—unmovable, pressing down on every Venezuelan who had dared to believe that something might finally change. In the stillness that followed, I felt a grief I couldn’t shake, one that seemed as much a part of the country as it did of me.

A part of me felt like an outsider observing Venezuelans, yet I was deeply rooted in the story. The announcement told one story in numbers, but the truth lived in the voices I had heard in the past weeks—through tears, protests, laughter, and the refusal to surrender their dignity. To be venezolana, I realized, was to live in this space between loss and endurance, to embody resilience. 

I lived this story intimately, knowing I would soon leave. It was strange—the feeling of belonging to a place that you can inhabit, feel, yet also slip away from, as though it never quite holds you. The same duality of not having a home, but having it, all at once. When I returned to Mexico City, I cried for days. I tried to explain it to my partner, stumbling over words that fell short against the weight of what I felt. I could barely understand it myself.

Today, nearly five months after the election, María Corina Machado is in hiding, her team scattered—some jailed, others in exile. Edmundo Gonzalez, the president-elect, exiled in Spain. Thousands remain imprisoned. And with the inauguration now just weeks away, the government still cannot prove with evidence, its victory.

For Venezuelan journalists, doing their job has become an extraordinary act of courage. Publications have been silenced. Reporters work under constant surveillance, knowing that a story told too honestly might cost them their freedom. In a country where telling the truth is dangerous, storytelling becomes a lifeline. Every report, every photograph, every interview is a thread holding the national narrative together, preserving memory in the face of erasure. It’s not just about exposing what is broken, but also about holding onto what remains. Perhaps this is the truest form of resilience: the insistence to tell the story.