Chibia Thermal Springs

Chibia Thermal Springs in the Chibia municipality of Huíla Province, southern Angola, emerge in the highland plateau homeland of the Nyaneka-Humbi people, seminomadic agropastoralists whose spectacular body decoration, elaborate cattle culture, and ancient spiritual traditions have fascinated anthropologists and photographers for over a century and define the cultural landscape of southwestern Angola's highland communities. The bicarbonate spring water flows warm from geological formations in the southern African plateau, used traditionally by local communities for ritual practices embedded in the spiritual geography of the Nyaneka-Humbi ancestral landscape. The springs emerge in a region of great ecological diversity where the moist highlands support a very different vegetation from the Namib Desert to the west, giving Chibia's thermal springs a setting of unexpected botanical richness in one of Africa's least-known corners.