Need a Little Background for a Story

I’m writing an eclipse-inspired very short story, and I need a city in Mexico. The requirements are:

  1. Good view of the 1991 total eclipse (long totality and had good weather that day)
  2. Populous enough to have bad neighborhoods (bonus: name the neighborhood!)
  3. Bonus: humid enough to have lots of insects

It’s a silly little piece, but I like to get my facts straight. Currently I have it in Cabo San Lucas, but a larger city would be preferable, as long as the first two criteria above are met.

Thanks in advance!

19 thoughts on “Need a Little Background for a Story

    • Your first two attempts had two links, which apparently got them snagged by one of the anti-spam systems and put into a bin for me to approve. It wasn’t the normal spam bin, though, so I didn’t notice them at first. Anyway, now that I’ve approved you for these, you should have no trouble in the future.

  1. what about Guadalajara? That city is awesome and you could work in a bit about how the bread is so perfect. Crunchy on the outside, squishy on the inside, is there a better sandwich roll out there? I think not.

  2. Thanks everyone for your help! I’m submitting this story to a paying site (token payment but still) but if they reject it I’ll post it here or submit it to Piker Press (though Piker doesn’t usually deal with stories that short).

  3. Pat brings up the issue that, while Mexico City may have had “clear” weather, the air there is seldom clear, as it is in close competition with Beijing for having the world’s most polluted air.

    Recently, I’ve heard that emissions rules have helped the air to become clearer, but in 1991 it was about at its worst. I don’t know how good a view of the eclipse your story needs, but Mexico City’s air was pretty darn opaque back then.

  4. The Federal District would have a huge advantage in bug tonnage and numbers of slums. I don’t think poor people can afford Cabo and neither Cabo nor La Paz are particularly huge or especially humid in spite of being adjacent to the sea.

    • That’s what I figured, too. Bat-friendliness was more important than optimal viewing, as long as totality lasted long enough. Yep, bats. I’m assuming they would come out. If they don’t, I don’t want to hear about it.

      The good thing about such short stories is that they don’t demand a lot of time or rewriting. Either they work or they don’t. The story is now submitted to a Flash-fiction daily that pays enough to buy me a beer (plus an extra dollar if they put it into an anthology). I should hear back within 60 days.

      Yep, 60 days.

      • Go, bats, go, bats, yeeaaaah baaats!

        My guess is that for an eclipse, bat colonies that live on the underside of bridges and that sort of situation would mobilize, but those in caves wouldn’t, because they wouldn’t know it was getting dark out.

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