Morocco Sufi Music Tour

On the second day of your Morocco group tour, you will spend your morning exploring Volubilis, the Roman capital of Northwestern Africa, complete with a meditation session amidst the city’s ruins at the Basilica. You will walk back to your hotel through an ancient olive tree grove, which Martin Scorcese used as a filming location for the Last Temptation of Christ. This will lead you up the hills to the caves and troglodytes that have served as a shelter and isolated premises for many stoics and Sufi masters that have shaped the spiritual backbone of Moroccans. After walking in the footsteps of our Sufi ancestors, you will return for a Kabab lunch in the hotel gardens overlooking the legendary Roman ruins. Continuing on this Sufi music tour in Morocco, you will be offered an hour-long drumming workshop, including an introduction to the local trance dancers and drummers of the Hmadsha Sufi drummers, who have earned a great reputation with haunting rhythms and chants throughout the Islamic Sufi world.

Starting your walking guided tour in the morning, your small group of spiritual seekers will depart for Fez, where you will check into your hotel, a Moorish Riad in the Medina. You will be served lunch over the roof of your riad overlooking the 9th-century-old Medina. Later, you will devote your afternoon to exploring Fez, with a historical tour including visits to the Mellah (the Jewish quarter), the King’s palace, and the Bat’ha Museum of Moroccan Arts. Then we will drive to the Merinides hill to visit their necropolis. You will enjoy the best panoramic view of the Old Walled Medina, which is brimful with countless minarets to call for prayers in a city that has responded to these calls for 12 centuries. Drive down the hills to the gate of Bab Guissa to leave your vehicle and enter a world that belongs to an ancient time. Fez has conserved its integrity and existence, and the Medina is still as it was centuries ago. Not even a bicycle can be used as a tool for transportation. Only donkeys, mules, and horses can help move all the city produces and needs as supplies.

The first guilds you will immediately encounter are the cobblers, the saddlers, and blacksmiths interlaced by some caravansaries for tribe members from the surrounding areas to trade and supply their needs. Down the hill to Juteya, you will encounter all sorts of crafts, but noticeably carpenters and leather workers as one of the traditional tanneries is not far. This walk will lead you to El Ashabine Square with its different activities; we will wind our way to the Sgha Square, which will lead us to Attarine, then Souk el Henna and the Mausoleum of Moulay Idris, the founder of Fez.

In the same vicinity, you will visit the Nejjarine square with its famous fountain, its guild of carpentry, the Museum of Folk Arts at the Fondouk, the tannery, and on to visit the great Mosque University of al Quarrawiyyine. Visit the market of dried fruits, the Medersa Attarine to Sbetryyine bookbinders street, the Seffarine Square, where the tapping of metalworkers on copper and Brass is still deafening the passersby as it was the case for centuries.

You will break for lunch, then continue exploring the marvels of Fez Medina. Initially, this will highlight the Dyers of silk and other yarns workshops, Foundouk Tetouan, a medieval warehouse where traditional products are traded in the old fashion. Your discovery will proceed on to the shrine of Sidi Ahmed Tijani and up by foundouk Lihoudi, where a family will host you for a traditional tea in their home. After dinner, we will gather for our daily debriefing, then join the Issawa Spiritual drummers, who will fill up the courtyard of your Riad. Enjoy dancing and chanting in the ambiance of a family circle. Enjoy your spiritual journey in Fez, the city of Islam, as Titus Burckhardt once called it.

You will have the morning at your leisure, free to do what you please. In the afternoon, you will take an excursion outside of Fez to the rural Mount Zalagh to visit the shrine of Sidi Ahmed el Barnoussi, an ideal place with a view for contemplation and meditation. For centuries, people have retreated from this hill of serenity and peace. Mules will be available if you prefer to ride up to the shrine. A local group of Tebbala from the neighboring village will escort you up the hills leading to the shrine and entertain you with their drums and traditional oboes (Ghita). Dance up the almond and olive groves to attend an introduction to Jajouka rhythms and other traditions, followed by an excursion to Mount Zallagh in the Riff Mountains. Afterward, as you watch the sunset over Fez, you will enjoy a mint-tea party at the Sidi Ahmed el Barnoussi shrine, a pilgrimage for Sufis from all over Morocco. We will return to the hotel to freshen up and meet for our daily debriefing about our spiritual journey and Sufi music jams. You will complete your day with dinner and dancing in a Moroccan restaurant, and a Chaabi musicians group will entertain you.

As in medieval times, you will trade in the Medina, huggling your way to settle for a price. It is not only trading but interacting with locals. You will devote your morning to shopping in the Medina, where you will find a variety of musical instruments and other artifacts. You will attend a workshop in the afternoon about Gnawa rhythms rooted in Africa and Subsahara trance rituals and customs. After dinner, you will return to the heart of the Medina, where you will attend the Jilala Ceremony, trance dancing, and a Henna ceremony at Dar El Haj Moorish palace.

Ready for your travel day with your small group of truth-seekers on a spiritual journey in Morocco, the land of Saints. You will leave Fez and venture into the Atlas Mountains in the morning. Your first experience with the Atlases will surprise you since the hills of the Middle Atlas seem oddly un-Moroccan. Passing by Imouzzer, with a break stop at the Suisse like the town of Ifran, you will soon come across the first real town of the Middle Atlas, Azrou, an important market center for the region’s Berber tribes that is located at a major junction of mountain routes. Your driver will take a little detour in the cedar forest to introduce you to one of the oldest inhabitant of this region, the Barbary apes.

Today’s tour in the Atlas Mountains may also coincide with the encounter of a nomadic family in its temporary encampment. Initially, nomads are very hospitable people; whenever we encounter them, we are all invited at least for a mint tea under their tents. Midelt's Middle Atlases give way to the High Atlas Mountains, whose peaks are visible through the haze, soaring to over 12,000 feet. You will stop in Midelt for lunch, enjoying the dramatic sight before you. You will then continue to Erfoud, one of the most delightful southern regions consisting of a dry, red belt of the desert with a sudden drop into the lush valley of Ziz, with copious date palm groves and flowing streams. You will conclude your day with dinner at your hotel.

You will have the morning to reflect on this spiritual journey leading to the Sahara desert's natural setting, its voluptuous dunes, lush oases, and desolate arid desert. Our morning Sufi invocation will be followed by an excursion to the holy city of Rissani, the birthplace of the founder of the ruling Alaouite Dynasty after lunch. You will then continue your journey to Erg Chebbi and watch the sunset behind the spectacular Merzouga dunes of the Sahara, a sight so beautiful that words cannot describe it. Afterward, you will have dinner with the Tuaregs and the tribal Rokba Tagmount Dance. You will spend the night camping on the dunes.

After breakfast, we will travel west to explore the most picturesque valleys in Morocco. This tour is not only a spiritual journey in Morocco but also an active walking tour of the best vistas of Morocco. Only fifteen kilometers from Tinghir, you will find the highest, narrowest gorges in the region: the Todra. You will then travel through the Dades Valley, where thousands of rose bushes act as hedgerows to divide plots of land used for local produce. Thousands of majestic Kasbahs appear along the Dades River, timeless in their beauty. You will visit a Berber home to experience Ahwash music and Megouna dance, followed by dinner and accommodations at the Hotel Bougafer in Tinghir. After dinner, we will have our daily Sufi debriefing.

You will depart Tinghir and journey through El Kelaa De Mgouna and Boumalne. On your small group tour, you will explore the Dades Valley as you continue to Ouarzazate, traveling and exploring Berber cliff-hanging villages and markets. Ouarzazate is defined by one large Oasis that intercepts the flow of water between the Dades, the Draa valleys, and the majestic High Atlas Mountains. Dinner and accommodations will be provided in the guesthouse reserved for your music tour, where you will enjoy a night of tribal music with Houwara Dancers.

You will depart in the morning for Marrakech, traveling via Taddart and the Tizin’Tishka Pass. The Pass, at an elevation of 11,000 feet, divides the mountains into two totally different aspects. The first side acts as a shield, protecting the hinterland from the Sahara’s harsh, dry climate. The second side is soft and evergreen, collecting moisture brought by the Gherbi winds from the Atlantic Ocean. You will arrive in Marrakech, a pleasant city where southern tribe members and Berber villagers bring goods, spend money, and find entertainment. Marrakech is perpetually fascinating for tourists, sitting majestically before the soaring Atlas Mountains. You will have lunch at your hotel and visit the bustling Jemaa El Fna Square. Afterward, you will visit a local home, where you will enjoy dinner, the local Dekka music of Marrakech, inspired by the roots of the famous Gnawa Rhythmic music and dancing, a Total emblematic African Music.

You will devote your morning to discovering Marrakech's many historical sites with your guide. The city tour will be followed by a festive lunch at La Paix Restaurant, a French restaurant with an Art Deco theme. In this Music tour of Morocco, you will have a farewell dinner at the Moroccan Palace of Marrakech, followed by festivities complete with Andalusian and Sephardic music. Accommodations will be provided at the hotel or guesthouse. We will have a debriefing session to reflect on your journey and your Music Tour to Morocco.

After breakfast, you will leave your hotel for Marrakech Airport to catch a transfer flight to Casablanca. There, you will board your plane for the flight back home. Remember this unique Morocco music tour and Sufi Retreat experience. We hope to see you again in one of our Morocco group tours.