Andriamamovoka Hot Springs

Andriamamovoka Hot Springs near Antsirabe in the Vakinankaratra region of Madagascar's central highlands emerge in a volcanic landscape surrounding the country's foremost spa town, a city settled by Norwegian missionaries in the late nineteenth century who recognised the therapeutic value of the region's numerous mineral springs in a tradition of balneological medicine that continues in Antsirabe's numerous spa establishments today. The bicarbonate geothermal water flows warm from volcanic sources in a highland landscape of rice paddies, zebu cattle, and brilliant red laterite roads characteristic of Madagascar's Hauts Plateaux, an ecosystem profoundly shaped by human agricultural activity over more than two thousand years of settlement. Antsirabe's rickshaw culture, its gemstone and fossil markets, and the extraordinary biodiversity of the surrounding highlands, including the famous endemic lemurs and chameleons, make it one of Africa's most atmospheric and distinctive thermal spa destinations.