Hammam Meskhoutine
Interesting facts
- The water is supersaturated in calcite, aragonite and dolomite, so rock starts forming almost as soon as it reaches the air and loses its carbon dioxide.
- Its mineral load comes from water dissolving marine limestone and an underground body of gypsum and salt.
- The spring water is unusually mineral-rich, with electrical conductivity measured at more than 2,300 microsiemens per centimetre.
- In 1859 the French physician and agronomist Jules Guyot published a whole book on the mineral waters of Hammam Meskhoutine.
- In 1883 a settler from Lorraine named Jean Sadeler is credited with discovering an underground lake at the site.
- According to legend, the cursed wedding joined a brother and sister, and the whole procession was struck by lightning before turning to stone.
- The thermal complex built at the springs is known as Hammam Chellala, the 'waterfall bath', after the travertine cascade.
Why it is worth it
At Hammam Meskhoutine in north-eastern Algeria, water emerges from the ground close to boiling point — up to about 98 °C — and as it cools it leaves its minerals behind, building a stepped wall of travertine streaked white, cream, orange and rust. Steam drifts over the terraces, and beside them stand rounded cones of rock left by older springs.
The colours come from the water's load of calcium carbonate and iron, which precipitate out as it flows over the slope. The complex is fed by about ten separate hot springs with a combined output of roughly 1,650 litres per second, hot enough in the outflow channels to cook an egg. People have bathed here at least since Roman times, when the place was known as Aquae Thibilitanae after the nearby town of Thibilis; remains of the Roman baths survive, and the waters are still valued locally for easing rheumatism and joint pain.
The site's Arabic name means "the baths of the damned", and it comes from a story. Local tradition holds that a wedding party celebrating a forbidden marriage was struck by a storm and turned to stone on this spot, and that the billowing cones and draped terraces are the guests and their robes, frozen in place. The legend gives a name to what geology explains, but the scene — a mineral cascade in the middle of farmland, smoking even on a warm day — needs no story to be striking.
Getting there
Hammam Meskhoutine is in Guelma Province, in the commune of Hammam Debagh, about 14 km from the city of Guelma. The nearest airport is Annaba Rabah Bitat (AAE), about 63 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
Hammam Maskhoutine (Arabic: حمام المسخوطين, English: "bath of the damned") is a thermal complex located in Hammam Debagh, of Guelma Province, Algeria. The dramatic, multicolored travertine walls of the spring have attracted attention from locals and tourists alike since the era of the Roman Empire.
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