Where it is
Hai District Council places the springs precisely: Kilimanjaro Region, Hai District, Masama Rundugai Ward, in Chemka village. That is west of Moshi on the plain below the mountain, and the drive out is the reason the trip takes most of a day for a swim of an hour or two.
The Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner’s office describes the same place as Kikuletwa Hot Springs, also known as Chemka Hot Springs, and makes one point worth carrying with you: although it is called a hot spring, the water is not hot but warm. Neither authority publishes a temperature, and the figures that circulate elsewhere are not sourced to either of them.
What is actually there
Both accounts describe the same thing: a natural spring pool of exceptionally clear blue-green water, floored and rimmed with stone, enclosed by large indigenous trees whose roots hang into it. Hai District Council names monkeys, baboons, snakes, birds, lizards, fish and freshwater turtles among the wildlife around and in the water.
The activities the council itself lists are swimming, snorkelling, rope swinging, fish pedicure, photography and watching the monkeys and baboons. That is a fair account of what happens there. It is a swimming hole of unusual quality rather than a geothermal site, and it is busiest in the middle of the day.
A name that means three things
Chemka, Kikuletwa and Maji Moto are all used for this pool, and the confusion has two separate edges.
The first is that Maji Moto is also the name of a geothermal spring inside Lake Manyara National Park that runs far too hot to enter. A trip described only as “the hot springs” is worth pinning down before you agree to it.
The second is local and less well known. Hai District Council’s own attraction list carries Chemka Hot Springs and Kikuletwa Waterfalls as two separate entries, both in Chemka village, the waterfalls being near the technical college site. In the council’s usage the two names are not interchangeable, whatever travel copy does with them.
The hot spring swimming guide separates the sites properly and covers the health questions that go with swimming in warm fresh water, which are worth reading before you get in anywhere in Tanzania.
Common questions
How hot is the water?
Warm rather than hot. The Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner’s office says so explicitly. Neither the region nor Hai District Council publishes a temperature, so none is given here.
Are Chemka and Kikuletwa the same place?
The regional government treats them as the same springs under two names. Hai District Council, closer to the ground, lists Chemka Hot Springs and Kikuletwa Waterfalls as two different entries in the same village. Ask which one an itinerary means.
Is it safe to swim?
People swim there constantly and the council lists swimming as the main activity. It is fresh water, so the general precautions in the hot spring swimming guide apply, and there is no lifeguard and no published depth.