We're in the city of Tulkhan in Ecuador. It's a cool misty day as it very often is in Tulkhan.

And we are high up in the mountains, 9,000 feet, and just a quick hop from the border with

Colombia. So rain cuts on, hoods up, we're walking around the city. And we come to an

entrance of a labyrinth. This labyrinth is made of green sculptures. They're carved so

finely they look like stone covered with moss. But up close, you can see that they're alive.

This dense maze is created by lush green hedges, an herbal evergreen smell fills the air around you.

This isn't just some park. This is a cemetery. One so beautiful. It's creator once said,

it invites one to die. I'm Dylan Thoris and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's

strange, incredible, and wondrous places. And today we are taking you to a paradise for the dead.

The Jose Maria Azal Franco Guerrero Cemetery in Tulkhan Ecuador. That story after this.

It's December 1923 and a massive earthquake hits Tulkhan. The Earth shakes violently, 12 times in 24 hours,

and the whole town is devastated by the quake. The church collapses, the military barracks are

destroyed. Some estimates say that more than 150 people were killed. Hundreds were injured.

And as the death toll rises, a very practical problem presents itself. The town cemetery has also

been destroyed, so Tulkhan needs a place to bury its dead.

So the mayor calls on Tulkhan's park director for the job. He's a young man named Jose Maria

Azal Franco Guerrero, and we will call him Jose Maria from here on out. Not much is known about

Jose Maria's early life. He was born in a small village near Tulkhan called El Anhel,

and had been trained in horticulture by a teacher who spent time in the United States.

At the time of the earthquake, Jose Maria had done just a few small park projects around Tulkhan.

But nothing could compare to what he was about to do. Because Jose Maria decided to remake this

cemetery into something absolutely otherworldly, launching a nearly 100 year long art project that

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