The garden in the house where we are staying is so beautiful, it barely seems worth going out. But having read the guidebooks we settled on going to a private nature reserve in the hope of seeing the so far elusive sloths. It was a couple of miles east of La Fortuna.

By the reception was a bird feeding station and a type of rodent called an agouti. We took our time, looking hopefully up in the trees to see sloths. We were told that sloths can't regulate their body heat so they move up and down the tree to get comfortable. Almost immediately, up a palm tree, we thought we saw an animal but it was so small we could barely see it.

There was an enclosed area with butterflies which were feeding on bananas. The lake was meant to be stocked with caimans but despite our patience we saw none. An agouti ran on the path ahead of us and darted into the undergrowth. A squirrel with a black tail played above. Then we saw on a branch high up a small ball - a sloth. Our cameras could barely catch it's photo. In fact we saw 4 sloths in all but none moved. They were smaller than we imagined, or maybe they were just high up.

Back at the reception a small bird was feeding from a banana in a guide's hand. At least five agoutis were hanging round catching the crumbs which the birds dropped from their feeding station.

The lass at reception was amazed we had took so long - three hours. She said some people only took 20 minutes.

Back at the car, there was a blue sky and perhaps the best view of Vn Arenal yet.

For dinner we ate fajitas and uploaded our agouti videos to FB.