I have eaten a great deal of chocolate in my life. I have never eaten it like this. Understanding every single step — how the pulp around the seed tastes before it even ferments, how the smell changes through roasting — transformed the experience of tasting the finished bar into something completely different. And then the sloth: three metres above us, completely unbothered, eating at his own pace for a full fifteen minutes. One of those quiet, profound days that travel sometimes delivers without warning.

We brought our parents — both in their seventies — and this was the perfect day for them. Easy pace, no demanding terrain, remarkable things to look at and taste. The chocolate tour held their attention completely, and when the guide found the sloth my mother stood quietly beneath it for a long time without saying a word. She said later it was one of the most moving things she had ever seen. I could not have chosen a better experience for them.

Our children are five and eight and they were completely absorbed the entire day — you would not think a chocolate-making process could hold a five-year-old for two hours, but when you are actually doing it with your hands and tasting at every stage, it does. The sloth hike was the kind of wildlife encounter that you cannot manufacture or replicate. It was there, it was wild, and it stayed long enough for everyone to really look at it properly. A genuinely perfect family day.