The Gray Months in Latin America

The honest answer comes from a few weeks in the season itself, with nothing planned and no one to impress.

By Neil Solomon · 2 min read

Picture a couple named Carol and Dennis who moved to Latin America expecting sun. In the first year, the sun came. In the second year, they noticed a stretch of weeks when it did not. The light flattened. Carol stopped wanting to go out. Dennis found himself watching the clock.

They had planned for money and for paperwork. They had not planned for mood.

What people seem to describe

I read three short stories that touch this.

In Argentina, someone describes a gray, damp winter. The feeling is gloom. Their own answer was small and practical: a different café each day. It gave the day a shape and a reason to leave the house.

In Chile, a diplomat writes of grey winters and glaring summers. The mood is moodiness, a swing between two extremes. It reads as the sense that the year has two settings, and neither is gentle.

In Panama, someone spent eight winters on a small island. The feeling is reluctance. They did not rush toward it or away from it. The routine of the place wore on them in its own way.

I think the lesson is not to avoid any one place. It is to ask what the hard season is like where you are going, and what you would do in it. Many guides talk about the finest time to visit. Fewer talk about the hardest time to live there.

Carol and Dennis talk one evening.

"I miss the light," Carol says.

"We could take a trip in the dark weeks."

"Or have a plan for them, so they feel like part of the year."

That sounds wise to me.

It also helps to remember that gray is not the same everywhere. Some people find a damp, soft winter restful. Others feel the same weather as a weight. I do not think anyone can tell you which you are. The honest answer comes from a few weeks in the season itself, with nothing planned and no one to impress.