Gabo and Marcedes’s home in Fuego Street in Mexico City had a wooden study where the writer confined himself. Outside, it was a bustling Caribbean town; Inside, it was a world infested with scorpions and yellow butterflies. He smoked 60 cigarettes a day and worked obsessively as he created Macondo and its unforgettable inhabitants, the Buendias, the Moscotes and Melquiades. It was an excruciating as well as ecstatic journey. He was at his desk for eighteen months, just working on his book.
