Aguas Calientes (Macuelizo)

Aguas Calientes Macuelizo is a natural thermal spring site in the Macuelizo municipality of Nueva Segovia Department in northern Nicaragua, near the Honduran border, where oligomineral hot springs emerge in the pine-oak forested mountain landscape of the Nicaraguan highlands, used as a local recreational and therapeutic bathing site by the communities of this relatively remote agricultural region. The springs are part of the geothermal activity associated with the volcanic and fault zones of the Central American isthmus, which extends throughout the highland belt of northern Nicaragua where volcanic geology intersects with the folded mountain ranges of the Segovias. The surrounding landscape of cloud forest, coffee and tobacco farming, and the colonial heritage of Ocotal — the departmental capital with its distinctive Spanish colonial architecture and revolutionary history — creates a distinctive northern Nicaraguan cultural context for this natural thermal spring.