Manu Cloud Forest Lodge

Manu Cloud Forest Lodge is the small, quiet one further along the Manu road, set among cloud-forest slopes in the Kosñipata valley with a roughly four-hundred-foot waterfall on the Unión creek for company. There are only about ten private bungalows, each with a hot-water bath — not a given up here — and a veranda you'll actually use, because the view does most of the work. Getting in is a six-to-seven-hour drive from Cusco, so nobody arrives by accident; it's almost always a stop on a multi-day Manu itinerary rather than a destination in itself. There's birding from the door and a sauna to thaw out in afterward, which the cool, damp altitude makes more welcome than you'd expect. Verdict: a calm, well-kept staging post for the Manu road, with a waterfall thrown in.