This was a Nocturnal Monkey living as a pet in a hotel in a town we stopped in on our way back to La Paz after buying the land. It was a good reminder of why we are doing what we are doing.

Picture 1: As of Oct, 5 2005 Esperanza de Libertad owns 115 acres (46 hectares) of rainforest land in northern Bolivia. The land is 7 1/2 miles (12 kilometeres) from the town of Ixiamas. This is a Picture of the road from Ixiamas to Esperanza de Libertad's land.

Picture 2: About 20 acres of this land have already been cut and the rest is jungle. We would like to build and work on the cut land and leave the rest as untouched as possible.This is a Picture of Stella, Franci and Walla the dog on Esperanza de Libertad's land.

Picture 1: This land is beautiful and full of wildlife that now live on protected land (well, as soon as we can get people living on it to guard it from illegal logging and hunting). On our visits to the land we saw a group of 15 lion monkeys (read update #2, witness to a monkey hunt), tyras, anteaters, macaws,toucans and many different species of birds. This is a picture of a river on Esperanza de Libertad's land.

Picture 2: Many of the animals in this area are in danger of extinction. We hope to continue raising money to buy and protect more of the surrounding land.This is a picture of a tree on Esperanza de Libertad's land.

Picture 1: It took us several days to make our sign. This is a pictures of Franci's beautiful artwork of a lion monkey and a nocturnal monkey (she is happy to take commissions so email us if you are interested).

Picture 2: This is a Picture of a sign Stella made (a bit less artistic than Franci's) letting people know that there is enforcement of the Bolivian Environmental law #1333 on this land. This law makes it illegal to take any wild animal from the wild for commercialization, meaning it is legal to hunt for food for you and your family but illegal to sell wild animals dead or alive. It is also illegal to hunt on private property, which our land is.

Picture 1: This is a Picture of Walla on the sign.She helped us every step of the way.

Picture 2: This is a picture of the finished sigh.

Picture 1: The wood was the strongest we could find (to protect the sign from termites) and was very heavy.

Picture 2: This is a picture of us putting up the sign, which turned into quite a process. We dug about 6 feet down then we positioned the legs into the holes and managed to lift the sign up enough to get the truck under it. We were stuck in that position for several hours of attempting different ways to pull/push the sign all the way up with out any casualties.

Picture 1: After several days of painting followed by a few more days tracking down transportation and tools to get to the land followed with a long day of physical labor we were quite happy to get the sign up!

Picture 2: Stella-Esperanza de Libertad Project Coordinator USA, Fraci-Esperanza de Libertad Project Coordinator Bolivia and Walla-Esperanza de Libertad's first volunteer on Esperanza de Libertad's land Oct. 2004! YEAH!

Click here to see Update # 4 Land Purchase!