We came with two children, aged eight and eleven, and my mother-in-law who is seventy-two and walks with a cane. All three did the hanging bridges. All three were completely absorbed. The guide was exceptional with the children — explaining every bird, every insect, every plant in a way that held their attention completely. The sloth encounter at the end was the culminating moment: the children stood silent for the first time all day, just watching. That is the most remarkable thing these creatures do — they slow everything around them down. A perfect family day.

I spent two weeks in Costa Rica over twenty years ago and have wanted to see a sloth in the wild ever since. This tour gave me that, plus a great deal more. The hanging bridges section offers a perspective on the forest that no trail walk can match — you are inside the canopy rather than looking up at it, and the biodiversity visible from that height is extraordinary. The Llanos de Cortez waterfall before it was an unexpected bonus. The sloth waited for us in the trees exactly as the guide said it would. Worth twenty years of waiting.

My husband is not a nature person. He agreed to this experience mostly to keep me happy. He came home and asked when we could go back. The Llanos de Cortez waterfall is genuinely one of the most beautiful things we have seen anywhere in the world — it doesn't look real. The bridges were a surprise for him — he had expected something precarious and found instead something graceful and educational. And the sloth. He photographed it for forty-five minutes and has not stopped talking about it since. Mission accomplished on all fronts.