Its cold walls are marked with words and coloured murals, written and drawn over 139 years by prisoners ranging from chicken thieves to politicians. Rich and poor, good and bad, innocent and guilty, inmates used the walls to record their days living in this human storage facility known as the Garcia Moreno Prison.
The four-block-long building with numerous wings has been abandoned since September, when the 2,600 prisoners living in a space originally built for just 300 people were transferred to a larger and more modern penitentiary. But many of the inmates’ stories of love, misery, desperation and greed remained behind, scrolled in hallways now strolled by visitors on public tours.
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