Tulcán’s Municipal Cemetery

Local resident José Franco started the famous topiary works in Tulcán’s municipal cemetery decades ago. Today Franco is buried amid the splendor of his creations in what is called the Escultura en Verde del Campo Santo (Sculpture in Green of the Holy Field), under an epitaph that calls his creation “a cemetery so beautiful it invites one to die.” Monumental cypresses have been trained and trimmed into figures out of Roman, Greek, Inca, and Aztec mythology, interspersed with arches, passageways, and intriguing geometric shapes. The cemetery has become such a tourist attraction that vendors sell film and ice cream outside the gates. Needless to say, exercise discretion if a burial procession is in progress.